
Class £-6 6^ 

Book, .C-^/^^^ 



PUBLIC LIFE 

of 

ZACHARIAH CHANDLER 

1851-1875 



BY 



WILMER C. HARRIS, Ph. D. 




LANSING 
MICHIGAN HISTORICAL COMMISSION 

1917 






Source unkaowa 
iUL ki una 



PREFACE 

THIS little monograph is intended in no way to su- 
persede the Post and Tribune "Life of Zachariah 
Chandler." That interesting work will remain a mine 
of information for the student of Mr. Chandler's 
political career. It was written by his friends^ and 
contains information which would be difficult if not 
impossible for the student of the present day to find 
elsewhere. But, written by his friends at a time when 
the stirring events with which Mr. Chandler was 
connected were still fresh in their minds, the Post and 
Trihime "Life" is necessarily not wholly impartial. 

In presenting to the pubhc another study of Zach- 
ariah Chandler, I ask consideration for three reasons: 
first, I can, I believe, write with reasonable impartia- 
lity; second, I will present Mr. Chandler as a typical 
product of his time, a fire-eater of the Northwest, the 
representative in the United States Senate of the 
radical spirit dominant among his constituents during 
the epoch of Civil War and Reconstruction; third, I 
will present Mr. Chandler as the exponent of a system 
of practical politics, which will, I hope, be of interest 
to the student of American history. 

To those who, by their sympathy and aid, have 
assisted me, I desire to express my most sincere ap- 
preciation. I am especially indebted to Prof. C. H. 
Van Tyne of the University of Michigan, and Prof. 
F. L. Paxson of the University of Wisconsin, who 



PREFACE 



encouraged me to continue graduate work beyond the 
Master's degree and suggested "Zachariah Chandler" 
as a subject for my doctoral dissertation. For valuable 
suggestions in regard to the treatment of this subject, 
I wish to acknowledge my indebtedness to Prof. A. c' 
McLaughlin of the University of Chicago, without 
makmg him. responsible in any way for the defects of 
my work. 

Librarians and attendants at the libraries where I 
have worked, have been uniformly anxious to aid me 
m locating material. Among these I should especially 
mention Mr. Gaillard Hunt and Mr. Fitzpatrick of 
the Manuscripts Division and Mr. Morrison of the 
reading room of the Library of Congress; Mr. Utley 
of the Detroit Public Library; Mr. Cleavinger of the 
Jackson Public Library and Mrs. Ferrey of the Michi- 
gan Pioneer and Historical Society. The private 
library of Mr. C. M. Burton of Detroit has been open 
to me with the sam.e generosity w^hich is always shown 
there to students of Michigan history. 

Judge John J. Speed and Mr. H. M. Utley of Detroit ; 
Hon. James O'Donnell, Edward W. Barber and Geo.' 
W. Kennedy of Jackson, Michigan; Samuel L. Kil- 
bourne and Elias Martin of Lansing, Michigan, are 
among those whom I have interviewed. The late 
Prof. Martin L. D'Ooge of the University of Michigan 
and Hon. Gerrit J. Diekem.a of Holland, Michigan, 
were consulted in regard to the Hollanders in Western 
Michigan. Mr. Joseph A. Labadie of Detroit gave 
me some information in regard to the French element 
in Detroit; Mr. Le Roy Parker of Batavia, N. Y., 
wrote m.e in regard tp his part in the Senatorial contest 



PREFACE 



in January, 1875, and Rev. Henry P. Collin of Cold- 
water, Michigan, very kindly interviewed for me Mr. 
George Van Aken and others in Branch County m 
regard to the defeat of Mr. Chandler in January, 1875. 
Mr. J. B. Edmonson, Principal of the Jackson High 
School, assisted me in every way within his power. 

Mrs AmeUa Frink Redfield of Marshall, Michigan, 
allowed me to copy some eighteen letters written by 
Mr. Chandler to her grandfather, Charles T. Gorham 
of Marshall. For this I am especially grateful. 



CONTENTS 

Chapter Pag^ 

I. Mayor of Detroit 7 

II. Candidate for Governor of Michigan 14 

III. The Formation of the RepubHcan Party in Mich- 

igan 20 

IV. The Basis of Michigan Politics 30 

V. Elected to Succeed Lewis Cass in Senate . ^ 39 

VI. Early Years in U. S. Senate and the Campaign of 

1860 44 

VII. The War Begins 53 

VIII. The Campaign of 1862 in Michigan and Mr. 

Chandler's Second Election to U. S. Senate. ... 63 

IX. In the Senate, 1863 and 1864 70 

X. The Years 1865-66 82 

XI. Foreign Affairs and Reconstruction 95 

XII. Mr. Chandler's Third Election to U. S. Senate. . . 102 

XIII. Grant's First Administration and the Campaign of 

1872 Ill 

XIV. Grant's Second Term and Mr. Chandler's Defeat 

in 1875 123 

XV. Summary of Mr. Chandler's PoHtical Career, 

1875-1879 133 

Bibliography 139 

Index 145 




/ACllAKIAll CIIAXDLIOK 

From a photograpli by Sarony, New York. 



PUBLIC LIFE OF ZACHARIAH 
CHANDLER 



CHAPTER I 

Mayor of Detroit 

r\N the evening of February 19, 1851, a Whig 
^^ Convention, composed of delegates from the 
several wards of the city, nominated Zachariah Chand- 
ler for Mayor of Detroit. This was Mr. Chandler's 
first candidacy for public office. A native of Bedford. 
New Hampshire, at the age of twenty he had joined 
the swelling tide of immigration that poured into 
Michigan from New England and New York in 1833. 
Engaging in the mercantile business, his prosperity 
had kept pace with the growth of the State and the 
year 1851 found him, at thirty-seven years of age, a 
wealthy and respected merchant with the disposition 
and the leisure to enter public life. 

Detroit in 1851 was "booming." In the four 3'ears 
from 1850 to 1854 its population increased from 
21,019 to 40,373. At a conservative estimate it had 
25,000 inhabitants in 1851. The rapid growth of the 
city called for a proportionate extension of the system 
of city improvements — sewers had to be dug, water- 



8 ZACHARIAH CHANDLER 

mains laid, pavements and sidewalks built. All this 
meant expenditure of large sums of money, and Mr. 
Chandler was put forward by the Whigs as a man who 
possessed the requisite business ability properly to 
care for the city's interests. "It is an old and good 
saying," argued the Whigs, "that he who is diHgent 
and faithful and honest in his own affairs will be 
diligent and faithful and honest in the affairs of others 
whenever committed to his charge."^ 

The Democratic candidate was Gen. John R, 
Williams. General Williams was a wealthy merchant 
almost seventy years of age. He had already served 
six terms as Mayor and stood high in the councils of 
the Democratic party. 

L/ Detroit, as well as Michigan, was, a Democratic 

stronghold. In the mayoralty campaign of 1851, the 
Whigs,- realizing the necessity of gaining Democratic 
votes in order to elect their ticket, subordinated the 
argument of party regularity and relied on the "local 
interest" issue. The Democrats, who only needed to 
prevent voters from bolting their party ticket in 
order to be successful at the polls, strongly urged 
"loyalty to the Democratic party of Michigan." 

Fortunately for Mr. Chandler, the year 1851 was 
not one in which a governor or a president was to be 
elected. Democrats therefore did not feel the same 
necessity for party loyalty in the mayoralty election 
that they did, say, in 1852 when the result of the 
local election could be cited as an indication of party 
strength in the Presidential contest. Enough Demo- 

'/ crats spHt their tickets in 1851 to elect Mr. Chandler. 
1. Detroit Daily Advertiser, March 1, 1851. 




SAMUEL CHANDLER 

Father of Zachariah Chandler. From a photograph by D. O. Furnald, 
of Manchester, N. H. 



MAYOR OF DETROIT 9 

In 1852 they stood by the ticket and elected a Demo- 
cratic mayor. Mr. Chandler's majority was 349.^ 
Two other Whigs were elected; a city marshal by 352 
votes and a sexton by 269. Of twenty city officers 
elected the Whigs gained three and the Democrats 
seventeen. 

The office of Mayor of Detroit in 1851 was not 
one to attract the professional politician. There were 
arduous duties to be performed with reference to the 
city administration and the rewards were meager. 
The office carried with it no salary, and except for a 
fee of one dollar^ for each case tried before him in the 
Mayor's Court the Mayor received no remuneration 
for his services. Custom demanded"* that the Mayor 
subscribe liberally to charity and to various associa- 
tions for moral, religious and literary purposes. He 
was supposed to dispense the hospitality becoming to 
his station. Necessarily, then, the office was open 
only to men of wealth and public spirit who were 
content with the rewards that the honorable position 
and the opportunity to serve the city gave them. In 
1852, when Mr. Chandler's term was about to expire, 
two Whigs declined the nomination before a third was 
found who was willing to become a candidate.'^ 

i\s soon as the result of the election was ascertained, 
the Whigs gathered in front of the business place of 
Mr, Chandler and formed a procession which, headed 

2. Official City Canvass as given by the Advertiser, March 

8, 1851. 

3. Revised Charter and Ordinances of the Citv of Detroit, 

1855. 

4. Advertiser, February 17, 1852. 

5. Detroit Free Press, February 23, 1851. 



X 



10 ZACHARIAH CHANDLER 

by a brass band, marched to the residence of the 
Mayor-elect. Summoned to the door by the cheers 
of his constituents, Mr. Chandler made a brief address 
and then extended a general invitation to all to enter 
and partake of the hospitality of his house.^ On 
March 11, he took the oath of office, made an address 
to the Council and was escorted to his home by several 
hundred of his fellow citizens preceded by the in- 
evitable brass band. Having made a short address 
at his home, Mr. Chandler closed with a general 
invitation to all to visit him the next day at three 
o'clock.^ 

That Mr. Chandler was a strong party man is 
^ evidenced early in his administration.* It seems that 
the contract for the city printing was a political 
"plum" that, notwithstanding a clause in the city 
charter providing for open competition, was by com- 
mon consent regarded as belonging to the newspaper 
which represented the party which had a majority of 
the Council. In 1851, political parties, with a full 
board, were equally represented in the Council, but 
the vote of the Mayor gave the control to the Whigs. 
There were two Whig papers, the Advertiser and the 
Tribune. The Free Press was Democratic. In the 
latter part of March, Mr. Carew, one of the Whig 
aldermen, was out of the city and Mr. Chandler found 
it necessary to leave for New York at the opening of 

6. Free Press, February 23, 1851. 

7. Advertiser, March 13, 1851. 

8. For this account I have relied on the Advertiser and Free 

Press from March 20 to June 23. The Council pro- 
ceedings are found in the Advertiser as well as in the 
Journal of the Common Council 1844-1852. 




SAMUEL CHANDJvEK 

Of Bedford, N. H. Father of Zachariah Chandler. From a daguerreo- 
type in the possession of Mrs. Eugene Hale, Ellsworth, Maine. 



MAYOR OF DETROIT 11 

navigation to purchase goods for his mercantile busi- 
ness. The printing contract had not yet been attended 
to. With both Alderman Carew and the Mayor ab- 
sent, the Democrats would control the Council and 
could award the printing to the Democratic Free 
Press. To avert such a contingency, Chandler called 
a special meeting of the Council and chose a day when 
seven of the eight Democratic aldermen .were attending 
a convention at Dearborn. The Council having con- 
vened, the printing contract was awarded to the 
Advertiser. This action was the subject of a long con- 
troversy. The Tribune felt aggrieved that its rival 
had secured the "plum." The Free Press took every 
opportunity of sowing dissension among the Whigs by 
championing the cause of the Tribune. Finally the 
Council passed a resolution requesting the Advertiser 
to surrender its contract and allow proposals for the 
city printing to be received. The Advertiser im- 
mediately replied, offering to surrender its contract 
on the appointment of its successor and to print all 
Council proceedings free for the remainder of the year. 
Here the matter dropped. The Advertiser ^Qonimwed 
to do the printing and was well paid for doing it. 

As Mayor, Mr. Chandler was often called upon to 
welcome distinguished strangers to the city. No 
visitor was more certain to arouse enthusiasm in 
Detroit in 1851 than one who had fought on the side 
of the Revolutionists in Europe in 1848. Liberty 
was a word to conjure with and Louis Kossuth and 
Dr. Kinkel were its prophets. Kossuth, though the 
streets of Detroit were not lacking in young men 
wearing the Kossuth hat and feather, did not accept 



12 ZACHARIAH CHANDLER 

]\Iayor Chandler's invitation to visit the city. Dr. 
Gottfried Kinkel, however, a German scientist who 
took part in the Revolution of 1848, came to Detroit 
in November, 1851, and was given a rousing reception. 
He appeared upon the balcony of the Biddle House 
accompanied by the Mayor and prominent citizens, 
and to quote the Detroit Advertiser, "Amid the joyous 
shouts of an admiring multitude, a large number of 
our ladies (God bless them) surrounded him with their 
smiles and wished him God-speed in his glorious 
undertaking."-' The address of Mr. Chandler upon 
this occasion is of interest today because it mirrors 
the mind of the man of sixty years ago who saw in the 
United States the land of Freedom, whose mission it 
was to guide the world to the goal of Liberty. In 
speaking of the failure of the Revolution of 1848 Mr. 
Chandler said, 

"The flame of Liberty may be smothered for a 
moment but it will break out with ten-fold fury at no 
distant day. The people have learned their rights 
and, knowing, dare maintain them . . . The decree will 
have gone forth and will be irrevocable. Kings, 
Dukes and Em.porers 'By the Will of C^od' must give 
place to Presidents, Senators and Governors 'By the 
Will of the People.' Then will those time-honored 
fabrics of Despotism fall, like tottering walls before 
the hurricane. When this struggle shall come, and 
come it must soon, America will not be an idle spectator 
of the conflict. . .Gentlemen, our country has a 
glorious destiny to fulfill. At present she is a beacon 
to the oppressed of every clime. To us they turn as 

9. Advertiser, November 26, 1851. 




MARGARET (ORR) CHANDLER 

Mother of Zachariah Chandler. From a photograph by D. O. Furnald, 
of Manchester, N. H. 



MAYOR OF DETROIT 13 

to the Star of Hope . . . With us they find hope. What 
has been done can be done again. Impossible is a 
word almost stricken from our vocabulary. Obstacles 
do not discourage us. Difficulties but add fresh vigor 
to our effort." 

Mr. Chandler's term of office expired in March, 
1852. The Whigs praised his administration; the 
Democrats censured it. He fulfilled the duties of 
the office creditably, his administration being particu- 
larly successful in caring for city improvements and 
finance. 



J 



CHAPTER II 

Candidate for Governor of Michigan 

QN July 1, 1852, the Whig state convention, ^ 
being assembled at Marshall, nominated Mr. 
Chandler for Governor of Michigan. On the first 
ballot, an informal one, Mr. Chandler received 76 out 
of 88 votes. On the next, a formal ballot, he re- 
ceived 95 out of 99. Mr. Chandler was not present 
at the convention, but William A. Howard, Chairman 
of the Whig State Central Committee, said that he 
had seen Mr. Chandler before leaving Detroit and that 
Mr. Chandler had said "he was not a candidate for 
any of the offices under consideration; that he pre- 
ferred working in the ranks, but should the con- 
>- vention see fit to nominate him he was with them."- 
The Democrats nominated Robert McClelland of 
Monroe. Mr. McClelland at this time occupied the 
gubernatorial chair. He was a lawyer by profession 
and had served both in the State Legislature and in 
the lower house of Congress. He was very popular 
and had a ready laugh which caused his opponents to 
say that "he laughed himself into office."^ 

The political campaign in Michigan in 1852, how- 
ever, was fought on national party lines. If the 
Whigs could convince the majority of the voters of 

1. Advertiser, July 3, 1852. 

2. Article by Isaac P. Christiancv in History of Monroe County, 

p. 245. 



CANDIDATE FOR GOVERNOR 15 

Michigan that General Scott should be the next 
President of the United States, then Mr. Chandler 
and not Mr. McClelland would be the next Governor 
of Michigan. Most men vote straight tickets. The 
Presidential contest being regarded as of paramount 
importance, local contests are usually decided by 
national parties fighting for national issues or perhaps 
for the control of the national administration. It is 
true that the local interests suffer, but that is the fault 
of our party system. When national issues are 
represented by national parties, state issues by state 
parties, and county and town and city issues by 
county and town and city parties, our whole party 
system will have been revolutionized. Hence it was 
that in Michigan in 1852 the campaign was one be- 
tween national parties headed by Scott and Pierce, 
rather than state parties headed by Chandler and 
McClelland. The situation becomes even more sig- 
nificant from the fact that there were no national 
issues which distinguished clearly the Democrats from 
the Whigs. Both acquiesced in the Compromise of 
1850, including the Fugitive Slave Law. The Free 
Soilers alone took a firm stand against the extension 
of slavery but their numbers were few;^ the majority 
of the people still clung to the old parties. 

The lack of vital national issues separating the two 
great parties resulted in a campaign of triviahties, 
personalities, appeals to prejudice, and canards. The 
amount of abuse bestowed upon candidates for office 
when Mr. Chandler entered poHtics must have deterred 

3. I. P. Christiancy, their candidate for Governor, polled 
5850 votes {Michigan Manual). 



y 



16 ZACHARIAH CHANDLER 

many worthy men from public life. No sooner was 
Mr. Chandler's nomination known in Detroit than the 
Free Press referred to him as a "whiskey bloat." On 
September 27 the same paper stated at the head of an 
editorial that it proposed to "clip Mr. Chandler's ears 
a little" and went on to say, "There is probably not a 
more reckless calumniator within the borders of 
Michigan than the Whig nominee for Governor, 
Zachariah Chandler." General Scott was dubbed 
"Fuss and Feathers," "Old Peacock," "White Feather 
Chieftain," while Pierce was .stigmatized by the Whigs 
as a "fainting general" and "Candy-man." "Scott 
Soup and Graham Bread" was a famiHar way of 
speaking of the Whig nominees. On October 14, the 
Detroit Advertiser spoke of Pierce as "the puny, 
shiftless and dwarfish abortion of a statesman" — and 
the Advertiser was perhaps less given to calling hard 
names than any of its Detroit contemporaries. The 
German vote was appealed to by the Democrats on 
the allegation that "Gen. Scott had tied to a tree and 
flogged fifteen Germans in Mexico." The "Sons of 
the Green Isle" were told that Pierce was opposed to 
reHgious freedom. The Democratic press tried to 
arouse prejudice against Mr. Chandler on the ground 
that he was wealthy, and the "Nashua Letter"'* pur- 
porting to have been written by a resident of Nashua, 
New Hampshire, declared that Mr. Chandler had 
publicly boasted that he had money enough to^^carry 
Michigan for the Whigs. Sectional feeHng was ap- 
pealed to. The Whigs declared-"^ that Pierce was "the 

4. Pontiac Gazette, Sept. 11, 1852. 

5. Advertiser, June 12, 1852. 




JOHN OKK 



Of Bedford, N. H. Father of Margaret (Orr) Chandler. Prom a 
silhouette in the possession of Mrs. Eugene Hale, of Ellsworth, 
Maine. 



CANDIDATE FOR GOVERNOR 17 

boasted favorite of the South . . . the South whose 
jealousy has long been directed to the growth of the 
Western States." Referring to the fact that the 
Michigan favorite and real leader of the Democratic 
party, General Cass, had not received the nomination 
for President by the Democratic convention, the 
Whigs derisively asked, "Will they submit? Can they 
be led by the nose?" Pierce, according to the Whigs, 
was the favorite of the Rothschilds, and they declared 
that "The Dungeon-Keepers of Austria shout for 
Pierce." 

Mr. Chandler was a most indefatigable campaigner. 
He spoke in som,e thirt}^ towns in the southern half of 
the Lower Peninsula. He always spoke in behalf of 
General Scott and the Whig ticket, but he also injected 
into his arguments a local issue. He produced figures 
purporting to prove extravagance and corruption in 
the Democratic State regime. He declared,^ for ex- 
ample, that by connivance between the Auditor- 
General and the State Printer, the State lost thousands 
of dollars annually on printing contracts. But his 
success after all depended upon the success of General 
Scott in the campaign for the Presidency. 

The Whigs attempted to make internal improve- 
ments an issue. They well knew that Michigan, with 
her long shore-Hne, desired federal aid in improving 
harbors and lakes. They pointed to the fact that 
Pierce had in 1841 voted against a bill appropriating 
land in aid of the construction of the Sault Ste. Marie 
Canal. The Democrats, desiring above all things to 
please everybody, told Michigan voters that Pierce 

6. Advertiser, Oct. 7, 1852. 
3 



18 ZACHARIAH CHANDLER 

favored internal improvements and they told Southern 
voters that he opposed them. The tariff received 
some attention and the Democrats continued to wax 
eloquent over the evils of the defunct United States 
Bank. 

Party lines in those days were closely drawn. There 
was such a thing as a party loyalty which was entirely 
independent of the hope of personal reward. There 
was an interest in politics which cannot be equalled 
today by the interest in any one thing — not even 
base ball. Devotion to party resulted in a real hos- 
tility to the opposing party. A campaign was a battle 
with the enemy. "Stand firm, Whigs. . .Keep cool-^ 
don't fire till you see the white of a Loco Foco eye — 
take a steady aim, and if the old Scott Rifles do not 
fetch them, then Gen. Scott is no marksman."^ 

Since the Whigs had no vital argument to attract 
Democratic votes or compel men to remain at home 
on election day, it is not surprising that the strongly 
Democratic State of Michigan remained Democratic 
in the election of 1852. The defeat of the Whigs 
cannot be ascribed to the Free Soilers, for the Demo- 
crats had a majority over the combined Whig and 
Free Soil vote.^ Mr. Chandler received some 800 
votes more than General Scott and 300 more than the 
X next highest Whig candidate for a State office. The 
Democrats in 1852 could say as in 1851,^ 

7. Pontiac Gazette, October 30, 1852. 

8. Tribune Almanac, 1853, Scott 33859 

Hale 7237 41096 



Pierce 41842 

9. Free Press, September 18, 1851. 




JOHN OKR 

Of Bedford, N. H. Father of Margaret (Orr) Chandler. From a minia- 
ture in the possession of Mrs. Eugene Hale, of Ellsworth, Maine. 



CANDIDATE FOR GOVERNOR 



19 



"We are annually honored with plaudits of victory 
when m truth it is but the recurrence of the 'Glorious 
Summer' of Democracy with its promises and its 
prosperity certain and unmistakable. In Michigan 
Whiggery scatters its seed over a barren soil- just 
enough IS reclaimed with each returning season to 
commence anew' and we now write their epitaph 
for the closing scene, 1851: 'What shadows we are 
and what shadows we pursue.' " 



CHAPTER III 

The Formation of the Republican Party in 
Michigan 

SO far at least as Michigan was concerned, it 
cannot be said that the Whig party "died of an 
attempt to swallow the Fugitive Slave Law." In 
1852^ the Whigs in Michigan polled 33,860 votes; the 
Free Soilers, 7,237; and the Dem.ocrats, 41,842. In 
1848 Taylor had received 23,947 votes; Van Buren, 
10,393; and Cass, 30,742. In the four years between 
1848 and 1852, then, the Whigs had gained 9,913 
votes, the Democrats 11,100. Figures for the in- 
crease in population during this period are not avail- 
able, but the fact that the Whigs more than held their 
own in spite of their acquiescence in the Fugitive 
Slave Law is unimpeachable. 

Neither can it be successfully maintained that the 
Kansas-Nebraska bill killed the Whig party in Michi- 
gan It was the occasion, not the cause of its dis- 
solution This bill was a Democratic measure carried 
by Democratic votes. It passed the House on the 
night of May 22, 1854. The majority'^ was composed 
of 101 Democrats, Northern and Southern, and 12 
Southern Whigs. The minority comprised 42 Northern 
Democrats, 2 Southern Democrats, 45 Northern and 
7 Southern Whigs, and 4 Free Democrats. The Senate 



1 Michigan Manual . (Presidential vote). 
2. T. C. Smith, Parties and Slavery, p. 107, 




ZACHAKIAH CHANDLEK 

From a photograph by Brady, Washington and New York. 



FORMATION OF REPUBLICAX PARTY 21 

concurred 35 to 12. Not a Northern Whig in the 
House voted for the bill. The great mass of the 
Whigs of the North denounced the repeal of the 
Missouri Compromise. 

The dissolution of the Whig party in Michigan was ^ 
a psychological phenomenon. The issue of the Kansas- 
Nebraska bill resulted in a most remarkable outbreak 
of antislavery sentiment, which expressed itself in 
massmeetings throughout the State. Such a meeting^^ 
was held at Detroit, on February 18, 1854. Mrl^ 
Chandler was one of the signers of the call and one of 
the speakers who addressed the meeting. The Whig 
party could have taken advantage of the situation and 
added to its ranks the various elements of opposition 
to slavery, but some of the most influential leaders 
refused longer to stand by the old Whig name and 
organization and demanded that a new party based on 
opposition to the further extension of slavery be 
formed. The men who advocated this course were 
temperamentally radicals. Their number included 
Zachariah Chandler; Joseph Warren, whose newspaper, 
the Detroit Tribune, was a powerful factor in making 
sentiment among Michigan Whigs favorable to the 
radical position; and Horace Greeley who, through the 
cokmins of the New York Tribune, a journal widely 
read in the Northwest, urged the formation of a new 
party. Conservative Whigs, not less opposed to 
slavery than the radicals, pleaded for the old Whig 
party. Their position was ably defended by the 
oldest Whig newspaper in Detroit, the Advertiser. 
The Conser vatives pointed to the ties of sentiment 
3. Advertiser, Februar}- 16 and 21, 1854. 



22 ZACHARIAH CHANDLER 

and interest that bound men to the old party. The 
Whig party had an organization of experienced and 
loyal workers; newspapers of influence and wide cir- 
culation were devoted to its cause. The Whig party 
had traditions and could influence the ardor of its 
adherents by eulogizing former leaders — Webster, Clay, 
and Adams. The Whig party according to the Con- 
servatives had lost the election in 1852 because it had 
evaded the slavery issue; by taking a firm stand on 
the issue of the Kansas-Nebraska bill the Whigs could 
A now restore their party to power. 

If the Whig party had adopted this course, stood 
firm on the issue of the repeal of the Missouii Com- 
promise, and refused to give up its name and its or- 
ganization, it seems certain that the Whig and not 
the Republican party would have secured the support 
of the antislavery elements and would have occupied 
the place that the Republican party does today. 

We repeat, the dissolution of the Whig party in 
Michigan was a psychological phenomenon. The Whig 
party, standing firm on an antislavery extension plat- 
form, would have secured the support of the minor 
parties — Free Soilers and Free Democrats. The radi- 
cal Whigs could have controlled the Whig party,'* but 
because they were temperamentally radical they pre- 
ferred to do the more radical thing, which was to bolt 
the Whig organization and fonn a new party composed 
of all the antislavery elements. 

4. This is proved by the fact that their bolt was a deathblow 
to the party and by the fact that in the Whig State Con- 
vention, which was called at the instance of conservative 
Whigs, the radicals were in control and prevented nomi- 
nations from being made. 



FORMATION OF REPUBLICAN PARTY 23 

Arguments to support the position of the radicals 
are not lacking; they were no doubt tired of being de- 
feated at the polls. PoHtical parties exist to get con- 
trol of the government. As Whigs, the Whig party 
had failed. The Democrats were traditionally the 
party of the "common people." The Whigs were de- 
rided as "aristocrats," and as such were regarded with 
hostility by the Democrats. Under a new name the 
Whigs would have less difficulty in gaining the support 
of antislavery Democrats. As Whigs, they had failed 
to win the foreign vote. "Whig" meant nothing to 
a foreigner; "Democrat" meant much. Most newly 
arrived immigrants believed that nothing bearing the 
name of Democracy could be wrong, so they joined 
the Democratic party. The Whig party too was be- 
lieved to be incHned towards "know-nothingism;" and 
so the CathoHcs, following the agitation of 1853, looked 
upon the Whigs as enemies of the Church. "Old 
names being cast aside, bitter and unlovely associa- 
tions would be cast aside with them," argued the 
radical Whigs. 

The Free-Soilers were extending the olive branch. 
As eariy as February 22, 1854, the Free Democrats^ 
had held a convention at Jackson and nominated a 
ticket, headed by the name of Kinsley S. Bingham for 
Governor. The Nebraska bill was passed on May 22. 
On the following day« there was a conference in De- 
troit between leaders of the Free Soil and Whig parries. 
Mr. Chandler was present. An agreement was made 
which^^ faithfully carried out. The Free Soilers 

5. Detroit Daily Democrat, Feb. 23, 1854. 

6. Jackson Citizen Press, June 3, 1910. 



24 ZACHARIAH CHANDLER 

met in Convention in Kalamazoo," declared them- 
selves ready to dissolve as a distinctive organization, 
and to withdraw the ticket which they had nominated 
in February in case a convention, irrespective of any 
existing political party and animated by antislavery 
sentiments, should meet to give effect to such prin- 
ciples as were represented by the Free Soil party. A 
Committee of 16 was appointed to carry this design 
into execution. 

The Republican party of Michigan was founded at 
Jackson, Michigan, July 6, 1854. Mr. Chandler, one 
of the leading radical Whigs, was present. He had 
signed the call and actively urged the calling of such 

>^ a mass convention of all the opponents of slavery. 
The day was fine. Delegations began to arrive on 
the fifth, among them a party of twenty from the 
Saginaw Valley who had come all the way, over a 
hundred miles, on horseback.^ No hall in the town 
was capable of containing the persons desirous of being 
present, so the Convention adjourned to a grove of 
oaks adjacent to the village; a stone marks the spot 
today, though the oaks have nearly all disappeared 
and the City has grown far beyond the site. 

\y A Committee on Resolutions was appointed and 
while it was deliberating the meeting was addressed 

-^ by Kinsley S. Bingham and Zachariah Chandler.^ 
The Jackson Citizen, giving a synopsis of Mr. Chand- 
ler's speech said, 

"When in the course of his speech he gave a brief 

7. Detroit Daily Democrat, June 22 and 23, 1854. 

8. DeLand, History of Jackson County, p. 174. 

9. Ibid., 1). 171. 



FORMATION OF REPUBLICAN PARTY 25 

history of the Wilmot Proviso in Michigan, he alluded 
to the anti-slavery resolutions passed by the Demo- 
ciatic State Convention, in 1849, and the resolution 
of instruction to the Senators and Representatives in 
Congress, by the State legislature on the same subject, 
and then exclaimed that not one of the Representatives 
had ever been honest to carry them out except Kinsley 
S. Bingham, a spark of enthusiasm fired the crowd, 
shouts of approbation rang through the vast assemblage 
and if any doubt had previously existed as to who 
should be the man for Governor that doubt was re- 
moved." 

The Committee on Nominations represented all the 
old parties present at the Convention. The slate 
proposed and later adopted by the Convention was 
headed by Kinsley S. Bingham, formerly a Democrat, 
later a Free Soiler and now a Republican. The 
nominee for Lieutenant-Governor had been a Whig; 
and the other nominations were carefully apportioned 
among the old parties. 

Air. Chandler's name was not on the slate. His 
reward for activity in the formation of the new party 
was to come later. It was the intention of the con- 
vention that he should succeed General Cass in the 
Umted States Senate. This fact is not to be sub- 
stantiated, perhaps, by documentary evidence of a 
"deal," but it is an almost inevitable conclusion from 
the circumstances of the case. The Jackson Citizen,'^ 
m allusion to the influences which produced the nomi- 
nation of Kinsley S. Bingham for Governor said, "No 
n mn did m ore to accomplish the result than Mr. 
10. Free Press, July 16, 1854, quoting Ciii.en. 



\ 



26 



ZACHARIAH CHANDLER 



Chandler, who had many friends himself in the con- 
vention for that office." We have already noted that 
Mr. Chandler referred in compHmentary terms to Mr. 
Bingham in his speech at Jackson. If the highest 
office in the State was to be given to a Free-Soil Demo- 
crat, the Senatorship belonged to a Whig. It is true 
that the Republicans denied any attempt to apportion 
the offices among the members of the old parties. 
They claimed to be influenced only by a desire to 
choose the best man. But it is equally true that if 
there had not been a fair division there would have 
been no fusion. For years after the formation of the 
RepubUcan party the old suspicion between former 
members of opposing parties remained. It was diffi- 
cult for a former Whig to vote for a former Democrat, 
though both called themselves RepubHcans. 

Mr. Chandler's canvass for Governor, his activity 
in the formation of the new party, his speech at the 
Jackson Convention, his work in the interest of Bing- 
ham for Governor, all demanded their reward. 
Whether there was a formal agreement or a tacit 
understanding between Mr. Bingham and Mr. Chand- 
ler I do not know, but the correspondent of the Detroit 
Free Press wrote" from Jackson on the day of the Con- 
vention, "It is said here that Bingham's getting the 
nomination for Governor has made ^Chandler's nomi- 
nation for Congress a certain thing." 

The Conservative Whigs who opposed fusion, made 
a demand^^ through the Detroit Advertiser upon the 
Whig State Central Committee that a Whig State 

11. Free Press, July 9, 1854. ■ • 

12, Advertiser, August 21, 1854. 




KINSLEY S. BINGHAM 
From the oil portrait in the Capitol, Lansing. 



FORMATION OF REPUBLICAN PARTY 27 

Convention be called. The Convention met at Mar- 
shall on October 4, but being in the hands of the 
radicals it adjourned without making nominations. 
The Conservative Whigs had to content themselves 
with making Congressional, legislative and county 
nominations in localities where they could find Con- 
servative Whigs to act. 

The Republicans perfected their State and local 
organizations as rapidly as possible. Petitions were 
circulated by the friends of freedom in many of the 
local governmental units calling for town, county and 
legislative district mass conventions. In some cases 
the town mass conventions elected delegates to a 
county convention; in others, the county and legis- 
lative district conventions were real democratic gather- 
ings of freemen, meeting in mass convention to draw 
up anti-Nebraska resolutions, nominate candidates for 
local offices, elect delegates to the convention of the 
larger units, and appoint officers and committees for 
the unit represented at the meeting. There were no 
regular party officers to call such conventions and the 
work of circulating petitions was taken up by any man 
or group of men who cared to advance in this way the 
organization of the new party. No better example of 
the ability of the American people to organize them- 
selves into effective political machines can be found 
than in this organization of the Republican party in 
Michigan during the months following the Jackson 
Convention. Late in August the Republican State 
Committee stimulated the movement by issuing a 
call urging the electors to circulate petitions and meet 
m local mass conventions, but the work was under 



u^ 



28 ZACHARIAH CHANDLER 

way in some localities before this call was made. To 
some extent at least the movement was local, popular 
and seemingly spontaneous. 

The result of the election. in Michigan in 1854 was 
the complete triumph of the fusion ticket. Bingham 
received 43,652 votes for Governor; Barry, the Demo- 
/\ cratic nominee, received 38,095. 

In spite of the increased population, the total vote 
for Governor was aknost 1,000 votes smaller in 1854 
than in 1852. This is to be accounted for partly by 
the disaffection of Conservative Whigs, and partly 
by the fact that 1852 was a Presidential year. The 
ascendency gained by the Reptiblican party in Michi- 
gan in 1854 has been retained from that day to this. 
The outgoing Governor w^as the last Democrat to oc- 
cupy the gubernatorial chair, until 1882 when Begole 
was elected by the Fusionists.^'^ 

The action of the radical Whigs in deserting the 
Whig for the Republican party alienated for a time 
the conservative element of the old party. The lead- 
ing conservative Whig organ, the Detroit Advertiser, 
early in 1855 began to advocate the principles of the 
Know Nothing part}', but in the summer of that year 
it joined the Republicans. No doubt many conser- 
vatives finally reached the new part}^ by the same 
roundabout route. A number of Conservative Whigs,''' 
however, as late as August 16, 1856, called upon 
members of the old party to vote for Buchanan to 
"preserve the independent existence of the Whig 

13. Since 1882, the Governors have been Republican with the 

exception of Winans, Democrat, elected in 1890 and 
Ferris, Democrat, elected in 1912 and again in 1914. 

14. Free Press, Axvrnst 23. 1^56. 



FORMATION OF REPUBLICAN PARTY 



29 



party." The real democracy of the movement which 
resulted in the formation of the Republican party is 
noteworthy. The Democratic party, the defender of 
the aristocratic social and political system of the 
South, had itself become aristocratic. The Whig 
party, traditionally the party of the aristocrats, had 
come to stand for the more democratic policy of op- 
position to the extension of the aristocratic system of 
the South. But the Republican party movement was 
an appeal to the people to join, irrespective of ancient 
party affiliations, in a common effort to preserve the 
democratic institutions of this country and to place 
a limit upon the encroachments of the aristocracy of 
the South. The struggle between the Republicans 
and the Dem.ocrats was fundam.entally a struggle be- 
tween democracy and aristocracy. The parties were 
no longer fighting for merely temporarv objects 
They represented the democracy of America in a Hfe 
and death struggle with the aristocracy of America 
It was Democracy against Despotism; Liberty against 
blavery; the m.anufacturing and trading spirit of the 
North against the agricultural aristocracy of the 
South— an antagonism which lay in the nature of 
things. ^^ 



15. 



Buckle, History of Civilization, II, 245, 



CHAPTER IV 
The Basis of Michigan Politics 

THAT the antislavery sentiment of Michigan ex- 
pressed itself in the formation of the RepubUcan 
party rather than enrolled under the banner of the 
Whigs is perhaps a matter of no great moment. A 
political party in the face of a great crisis is a means 
and not an end. It furnishes the organization without 
which sentiment and convictions are futile to ac- 
comphsh political ends. Michigan was antislavery. 
and was bound to express itself through the agency 
of a political party devoted to the cause of freedom 
in the Territories. 

Love of freedom was inherent in the people ot 
Michigan. They lived in the North, where slavery 
was unknown. They lived in the West, where honest 
toil was not despised. They resented the distmction 
between employer and employed, master and servant 
black or white, which was characteristic of the slavery 
system. They read the story of Keating, the Insh 
waiter, who was shot in a Washington hotel by Her- 
bert, a member of Congress from California, formerly 
of South CaroHna, for refusing to serve a meal after 
hours and failing to show that deference which the 
Southerner demanded of a servant, white or black. 
They asked themselves whether a system which pro- 
duced such insolence should be extended to the Far 
West— the Far West where the people of the North 



BASIS OF MICHIGAN POLITICS 31 

were wont to picture "the future homes of an ad- 
vancing and splendid civiHzation." Introduce slavery 
into those fertile regions and "the vision of peaceful 
groups of free laborers" would be changed into the 
contemplation of black gangs of slaves."^ Slavery 
stood for aristocracy, both social and political; freedom 
meant democracy. The South as well as the North 
desired to extend its own peculiar type of civilization, 
and this propagandist spirit was especially character- 
istic of the Northwest. Enjoying, themselves, the 
blessings of freedom, the peoples of the Northwest 
desired to extend a like boon to the future population 
of the western Territories. They had sympathized 
with the oppressed of Europe, and they now saw the 
inconsistency of pointing to the tyranny of Russia 
and Austria while the slaveocracy was extending its 
power and influence in their own land. Politically 
the question was whether "intelligence or property 
should rule;" socially, it was whether the laborer 
should be slave or free. 

The great bulk of the people of Michigan were 
farmers. Throughout the southern half of the Lower 
Peninsula the hardy and aggressive emigrants from 
New York and New England were engaged in agri- 
culture. The small but thriving villages scattered 
here and there were recruited from the same stock and 
dominated by the same sentiments as their rural 
neighbors. This population was filled with the spirit 
of liberty, and love for free institutions. It was here 
tha^tii^antislavery sentiment was strongest, and that 
'■ "^Pottics.'^"""""''' S<=Ptember, 1854, "Our Parties and 



32 ZACHARIAH CHANDLER 

the strength of the RepubUcan party lay; and it was 
in the northwestern part of this agricultural area that 
the largest RepubUcan majorities were given. In 1856 
Manistee,- a new county, populated by hardy pioneers 
and lumbermen, unvisited by stump speakers and 
without efficient mail service, gave 13 votes for Buch- 
anan and 185 for Fremont— none for Fillmore. 

In general, however, the strength of the RepubUcan 
party lay in the prosperous farming districts of the 
central, southern and western parts of the State. It 
was in these parts that the weekly newspaper was 
most carefully read and discussed. The New York 
Trihine was especiaUy popular with former New 
Yorkers. It was estimated" in 1856 that 35,000 Re- 
ptibUcan newspapers reached the firesides of the 
farmers of this region and that at least 10,000 religious 
papers went into the same homes. 

ReUgion played an important part in the Uves of 
these agriculturists, and the churches and religious 
papers which they supported were aU arrayed on the 
side of freedom. In the Detroit Tribune of December 
8, 1856, a writer after speaking of the increase in the 
number of Baptists in the Northwest quotes a com- 
plaint of the Detroit Free Press in regard to the activity 
of the Baptist ministers in the campaign of 1856, 
saying, "Most of its pulpits have been converted into 
poUtical rostrums and its journals with which we are 
acquainted, are the vilest of poUtical partisan sheets." 
General Cass speaking before a grand Democratic 
2. The vote was not officially reported in the Mamial. vSec 

Advertiser, Dec. 6, 1856. 
.3. By the Advertiser, July 2, 1856. 



BASIS OF MICHIGAN POLITICS 33 

mass meeting at Kalamazoo in September, 1856, said,"^ 
" It is a bad sign to see clergymen entering into politics. 
This I say in sorrow. It is their business to distribute 
the gospel and not Sharpe's rifles." The Sunday- 
school papers of the Methodists'^ contained stories of 
Kansas outrages. 

The conservative influences which center in large 
cities and money centers were weak in these regions. 
Capital was scarce, manufacturing was in its infancy. 
The poorest felt himself on an equality with the best 
and all were equally engaged in exploiting the resources 
of a new and fertile soil. 

Soil and climate, social and industrial life, historical 
traditions, poHtical interests and reHgious convictions 
all combined to array the Northwest on the side of 
freedom. The people of Michigan were immigrants 
or the descendants of immigrants. The immigrants 
from the older States were the hardy offshoots from a 
race of immigrants who in years gone by had in many 
instances braved the perils of the wilderness and the 
privations of new settlements.*^ Such men possessed 
in a degree never before surpassed the courage and 
moral force which fitted them to exert a commanding 
influence. The West is always radical, and in a 
crisis such as the slavery ques^^n which touched 
their deepest sentiments and interests the people of 
the Northwest were certain to" become a powerful 
factor in the councils of the nation. 

No man more truly represented this radical spirit of 

4. Free Press, September 7, 1856. 

5. Free Press, July 6, 1856. 

6. Free Press, May 16, 1862, quoting N. Y. World of May 14. 

5 



34 ZACHARIAH CHANDLER 

the Northwest than did Zachariah Chandler. Him- 
self an immigrant and the descendant of immigrants, 
he was the embodiment of Michigan Republicanism. 
He had "that coarseness and strength combined with 
acuteness and inquisitiveness ; that practical inventive 
turn of mind, quick to find expedients; that masterful 
grasp of material things, lacking in the artistic but 
powerful to effect great ends; that restless nervous 
energy, that dominant individualism and withal that 
buoyancy and exuberance which comes from freedom"^ 
— traits of the frontier or "traits called out elsewhere 
because of the existence of the frontier." At a later 
time when he represented Michigan in the Senate, on 
the problems of the war and reconstruction he was 
never behind and rarely too far in advance of the 
position of his constituents to command their en- 
thusiastic support. His votes in the Senate were al- 
most uniformly applauded, and represented as did his 
speeches both in the Senate and on the stump, not 
only his individual convictions, but the dominant 
sentiment of Michigan Republicanism. 

The Democratic party in Michigan found its chief 
support in the southeastern counties and in the extreme 
northern counties of the Lower Peninsula, and in some 
parts of the Upper Peninsula. Wayne County,^ in- 
cluding Detroit, could almost always be depended 
upon for a Democratic majority and the neighboring 
counties found the Democrats formidable opponents. 
The northernmost counties of Emmet and Cheboygan 

7. Turner, in Amer. Hist. Assn., Report, 1893. 

8. In 1860, according to the 8th U. S. Census, Vol. "Pop." 

p. 247, Wayne County contained 44,771 native born and 
29,103 forci<rn bom. 



BASIS OF MICHIGAN POLITICS 3o 

were strongly Democratic, as were the neighboring 
counties in the Upper Peninsula — Mackinac and 
Chippewa. 

'' Democracy is a name that charms," and the foreign 
element upon arriving in this country usually alHed 
itself with the Democratic party. The Irish were 
almost uniformly Democrats. They seemed to have 
little sympathy with the antislavery extension agita- 
tion. They usually settled in cities. In Detroit they 
found the Democratic party supreme, and as they are 
a people who take naturally to poHtics they secured 
from this party a fair share of the rewards due them 
for their support.. They are a clannish race, and their 
tendency to stick together in the support of any Irish 
candidate, their abiHty to dehver a "soHd Irish vote" 
made them an important factor in politics. The 
Irish too were CathoHcs, and in Detroit, at least, the 
leading Catholic clergy were Democrats, worked 
through that party to gain their political ends,^ and 
undoubtedly exercised considerable influence over the 
votes of their parishioners. 

The French element was descended from emigrants 
who had left France a century or more before. They 
were an humble folk for the most part, many of them 
being small farmers along the Detroit River. They 
seem to have been almost entirely unaffected by the 
democratic movements of the nineteenth century and 
to have exerted no appreciable influence on Michigan 
politics; the y were not interested in the slavery ques- 

9. The Catholics claimed for Detroit a Catholic population 
of 20,000 souls in a total of 60,000. Tribune, November 
13, 1856, quoting The Vindicator. 



36 ZACHARIAH CHANDLER 

tion and when they voted at all, being Catholics, they 
generally voted the Democratic ticket. 

The Germans, Democrats at first, soon allied them- 
selves in large numbers with the Republican^" party. 
They settled on farms rather than in the towns. They 
were full of the spirit of "Liberty and Union." Most 
of them came to America after the Revolution of 1848. 
Their personal experiences with tyranny in the Father- 
land, and their historical traditions, caused them to 
join the party of freedom and union. 

The Hollanders'^ too, at first Democrats, were 
naturally hostile to slavery. Their love of liberty 
was intense. They were a political power in the 
western part of the State, particularly in Ottawa, 
Allegan and Kent Counties. They had emigrated 
from Holland in the forties because of religious per- 
secution, and settled in the wilderness in Western 
]\lichigan. Their leader was Rev. A. C. Van Raalte 
W'ho sent three sons to the war and preached and spoke 
against slavery and for the preservation of the Union. 
The history of the Dutch people is the history of a 
struggle for "Liberty and Union." It is not strange 
that the Dutch of Michigan, finding that "Demo- 
cracy" was not "democracy," shifted their votes to 
the RepubUcan party. 

There was a conservative element scattered through- 
out the State that voted with the Democratic party. 
It was perhaps with reference to this that Mr. Chandler 

10. By 1860, this change was well under way. 

11. On the Dutch in Michigan, see article by Prof. D'Ooge in 

Mich. Hist. Colls., "Dutch Pioneers of Michigan," also 
Detroit Tribune, Sept. 19, 1872, and other papers about 
same date. Ouarter-Centcnnial held about that time. 



BASIS OF MICHIGAN POLITICS 37 

wrote to Charles T. Gorham after the election of 1862, 
"The CathoHc Church was solid against us and at least 
four -fifths of the Episcopal:'^" Although the Episcopal 
Church as an organized body did not ally itself on the 
side of the Democratic party, it probably included 
among its members many of the wealthier class of 
Detroit society, whose conservative instincts and 
quicker sympathy with Southern aristocracy led them 
to prefer peace with compromise to civil war. 

The counties of Emmet, Cheboygan, Chippewa, 
Mackinac, Delta, Keweenaw, Houghton and Ontona- 
gon in the far north, seem to have had little interest 
in politics. The population, largely foreign, was en- 
gaged in fishing, mining and lumbering. Transporta- 
tion was slow, the mails were few and far between, the 
best stump speakers never reached them. They were 
outside the pale of political strife and continued to 
vote the Democratic ticket. Menominee and Mar- 
quette, however, in the Northern Peninsula were Re- 
publican. In lumbering and mining districts a vote 
often loses its significance for us from the fact that the 
men voted as they were told. I have been informed 
that Delos A. Blodgett who lumbered along the 
Muskegon River was so popular with his men through- 
out that region that they were glad to accommodate 
him by voting the Republican ticket. 

No statement of the basis of Michigan politics would 
be complete without mention of the strong Union 
sentiment that pervaded all ranks of society. In the 
words of the Detroit Advertiser, ^^ "It is to us like air 

12. The italics are the vmter's. 

13. Advertiser, May 4, 1854. 



38 ZACHARIAH CHANDLER 

we breathe or the water we drink — an indispensable 
element of our existence; and as human beings, we can 
live as well without air or water as can the component 
parts of our Republic live without the union of our 
States." 



CHAPTER V 
Elected to Succeed Lewis Cass in Senate 

IN the campaign of 1856 the Democratic party of 
Michigan stood firm on the issue of the Kansas- 
Nebraska bill. They deplored slavery as an institution 
but claimed for the people of the Territories, prepara- 
tory to their admission to the Union, the right to de- 
termine for themselves whether or not they would be 
slave or free. 

By this, the doctrine of the Nicholson Letter (the 
work of the leader of Michigan Democracy, General 
Cass), the Democrats hoped to maintain themselves 
in power. They hoped to win Northern votes by their 
adherence to the principle of "local self-government " 
and Southern votes by opening up new territory to the 
** pecuHar institution " of the South. They were trying 
to serve two masters, Freedom and Slavery. 

But the Northwest was aroused. It had done with 
compromise. In its effort to keep its power in the 
South the Democratic party of the North had gone on 
bending the knee, compromising, conceding to the 
demands of the slaveocracy, until it had become un- 
representative of the spirit of the North. 

The Democrats believed that the principle of "non- 
intervention by Congress" would stifle all further 
agitation. The young, aggressive, radical Republi- 
can party did not care whether agitation stopped or 
not. Their fighting blood was aroused and they had 



40 ZACHARIAH CHANDLER 

^y done with compromise. In 1856^ the Republicans of 
Michigan carried the State by a majority of 19,623 
Votes for Fremont. 

The senatorial term of Lewis Cass expired on the 

A 4th of March, 1857. His public career had been a 
long and eminently honorable one, but he was old in 
years and represented ideas which had lost their hold 
upon the people of Michigan. With the formation 
of the Republican party, a party of younger men, 
virile, enthusiastic and earnest, a party having nothing 
to lose and everything to gain, longing for place and 
power but also bent on teaching the South that they 
at least were not to be bulHed into concessions — • 
with the formation of such a party and with its victory 
in the elections, the doom of Cass was written. High- 
minded, scholarly, patriotic statesman that he was, 
,Lewis Cass had outlived his time. 
K The Legislature of Michigan met early in January, 
1857. The most important question before the mem- 
bers was the election of a United States Senator. The 
Republicans having a majority of both Houses, the 
real contest took place in the Republican Caucus. 
The most prominent candidates were Zachariah Chand- 
ler of Detroit, Isaac P. Christiancy of Monroe, Austin 
Blair of Jackson, Moses Wisner of Pontiac, Jacob M. 
Howard of Detroit and Kinsley S. Bingham of Liv- 
ingston County. There was a constitutional- objection 

1. Michigan Manual. 

2. "No person elected Governor or Lieutenant-Governor shall 

be eligible to any offiee or appointment from the Legis- 
lature, or either house thereof, during the time for which 
he was elected. All votes for either of them, for any 
such office, shall be void." Constitution of Michigan, 
1850, art. V, sec. 16. 




ZACHARIAH CHANDLER 

From a miniature in the possession of Mrs. Eugene Hale, Ellsworth, 
Maine. 



ELECTION TO U. S. SENATE 41 

to the selection of Governor Bingham which greatly 
weakened his claims. Austin Blair, never a good wire- 
puller, failed to secure substantial support. Mr. 
Chandler was from the first the leading candidate. 
He had no scruples against bringing a large lobby to 
his support and openly sought to "win the game." X, 
His opponents, ostensibly at least, acted upon the 
principle that ' ' office should seek the man and not the 
man the office." There was some attempt to com- 
bine all elements of opposition to Mr. Chandler, 
eliminate him from the race and choose a candidate 
from among his opponents; the plan failed. Mr. 
Chandler's support came principally from the central 
and western part of the State.-'^ The members from 
these sections were for the most part young men, in- 
experienced in politics but radical Republicans. Their 
votes made Mr. Chandler the caucus nominee and 
resulted in his election to the Senate. 

There is some significance in the source of Mr. 
Chandler's support. We have already noted that 
the central and western parts of the State were the 
strongest Republican areas. They were also the 
most radical. Mr. Chandler's opponents were all 
sound RepubHcans. But Isaac P. Christiancy was a 
lawyer, later a Justice of the Michigan Supreme 
Court; Jacob M. Howard was an excellent constitu- 
tional lawyer and a man of scholarly tastes; Moses 
Wisner, Austin Blair — both were lawyers, and Lewis 
Cass had been a lawyer. These western radical Re- 
publicans did not want to send a lawyer nor a man of 
scholarly tastes to represent them in the Senate. 

3. Free Press, Jamiar}- 9, 1857; Advertiser, January 1, 1859. 



42 ZACHARIAH CHANDLER 

They wanted to send a man to Washington who would 
fight slaveholders — a fire-eater of the Northwest to con- 
tend with the fire-eaters of the South. They cared 
little about "experience as a statesman" or "training 
in the law." The frontier never does. A letter 
written at the time asks:* 

"But is not this question of experience, or of educa- 
tion as statesmen in our country a mere hallucination? 
Does not the history of Roger Sherman, the Rhode 
Island shoe -maker, of N. P. Banks who (although ad- 
mitted to be the ablest Speaker that has ever occupied 
the chair since Mr. Clay) at 26 years of age was a 
hard-working machinist, of Wilson who reared as a 
shoe-maker and acquired his experience and skill as a 
debater while hammering away at his last, prove that 
the very best Representatives and Senators that our 
Country has produced have come fresh from the 
people, tipright, active and energetic mechanics or 
business men?" 

The fact that Mr. Chandler was a merchant and a 
man of little education helped him to win a place in 
the Senate. His wealth was another element in his 
favor.^ He had made it himself and was admired for 



4. Letter signed "Michigan" in Detroit Tribune, Dec. 29, 

1856 — a Chandler paper representing radical element in 
Republican party. 

5. "A curiously significant change has come about in our 

attitude toward millionaires. In the early days, when 
our society was less differentiated and wealth-gaining 
represented exceptional ability of approximately the same 
kind as that of the average man, mere possession was 
prima facie evidence of shrewdness and savoir faire . The 
rich man was the respected 'leading citizen' (with a 
strong local flavor). He was the ordinary obscure 
citizen raised to the Nth degree." Walter E. Wc}-k\ 
The New Denwcracy, p. 80. 



ELECTION TO U. S. SENATE 43 

his shrewdness. No doubt his "lobby" and his very 
"practical" methods of gaining votes (of which we 
shall speak later) helped him to win, but above all else, 
his personality was of a type to appeal to the western 
members. The Marshall Statesman of January 14, 
1857, tells the secret of his power with the West, 
"Chandler will never bow the knee to the behests 
of the slave power, will never cringe to the threats of 
Southern fire-eaters, will never brook the sneers and 
insults of slavedom's bullies, but true to the memory 
of his Revolutionary Sires, he will battle for the right 
and prove an able champion of the guaranties of con- 
stitutional liberty." And again on January 21, re- 
plying to the ridicule of Mr. Chandler's oratory called 
out by his election, "He will prove no dough-face, no 
apologist for slavery extensionists, no cringing sycoph- 
ant to Southern braggadocios and no doer of Southern 
will. If his speeches prove not to he replete with elo- 
quence, elegant diction, rounded periods, logical argu- 
ments and cogent reasonings, his acts and votes will be 
eloquent and on the right side." 



CHAPTER VI 

Early Years in the United States Senate, and 
THE Campaign of 1860 



I 



N one respect at least, the West and South are 
akin: both are characterized b}^ an independent 
and sensitive spirit that is quick to resent an insult 

)/ and to maintain its "honor." Mr. Chandler's election 
to the Senate was due in no small degree to the belief 
of his constituents that in him they had found a man 
who would stand his ground, refuse concessions and 
A demand recognition for the claims of the Northwest. 
When Mr. Chandler took his seat in the Senate he 
found the slaveocracy in full control. All that he 
could hope to accomplish was to champion the cause 
of the Northwest, to m.aintain its "honor" in the 
Senate, to meet defeats with threats, and by his ab- 
solute faith in the ultimate triumph of his party, to 
encourage the Republicans at home to keep up the 
fight against the Democracy. This is the key to his 
career in the Senate from his entrance in 1857 until 
the election of 1860 and the withdrawal of Southern 
members left the Republicans in full control. 

^ In the appointment of the Senate Committees in 
December, 1857, the Northwest was practically ig- 
nored; out of fifteen committees that did all the busi- 

X^ ness, thirteen had Southern chairmen. The Com- 
mittee on Commerce, of vital importance to Mr. 
Chandler's constituents, was composed entirely of 



EARLY YEARS IN U. S- SENATE 45 

Eastern and Southern men: Clay of Arkansas, Ben- 
jamin of Louisiana, Bigler of Pennsylvania, Toombs 
of Georgia, Reid of North Carolina, Allan of Rhode 
Island and Hamlin of Maine. ^ Hamlin of Maine, ^ 
Doolittle of Wisconsin and Chandler of Michigan, 
arraigned the Democrats in bitter terms for monopo- 
lizing the memberships of the standing committees, x. 
Mr. Chandler closed his speech with a threat: "But 
we would say to the gentlemen on the other side of 
the Chamber, you have the power to-day; you can 
elect your committees as you see fit but, gentle- 
men, beware! for the day is not far distant when the 
measure you mete out to us to-day shall be meted to 
you again."- 

On March 12, 1858, Mr. Chandler delivered a care- 
fully prepared address on Kansas affairs.'^ The Wash- 
ington correspondent of the Detroit Tribune" wrote, 
"Passing to President Buchanan, he said that when he 
attempted to force a constitution^ on an unwilling 
people, he was no longer James Buchanan, President, 

but James Buchanan, criminal Should he 

attempt it and blood be shed, he would be liable to 
impeachment and liable to be hanged as a murderer." 
Quoting an extract from Senator Hammond's "Mud- 
sill" speech, he repHed to it with force, quoting South- 
ern writers to prove the degraded condition of the 
whites at the South and closing with a spirited defence 
of the Northern working, man. 

1. Cong. Globe, 1st Session, 35th Con^r., p. 38 

2. Ibid., p. 40. 

3. Ibid., P. II, p. 1086-1093. 

4. Detroit Tribune, March 13, 1858. 

5. Referring to the Lecompton Constitution. 



46 ZACHARIAH CHANDLER 

During the session, Mr. Chandler took eveiy op- 
portunity to secure an appropriation for deepening 
the channel at the St. Clair Flats. Southern hostility 
to the principle of internal improvements and Southern 
jealousy of the growth of the Northwest defeated his 
efforts. During the debate Mr. Chandler exclaimed.*^ 
"I want to have the yeas and nays upon it. I want to 
see who is friendly to the great North-West and who 
is not; for we are about to make our last prayer here. 
The time is not far distant when, instead of coming 
here and begging for our rights we shall extend oiu: 
great hands and take the blessing. After 1860, we 
shall not be here as beggars." 
[/^ In the short session of Congress, 1858-59, Mr. 
Chandler succeeded in pushing through the Senate an 
appropriation of $55,000 for the St. Clair Flats, only 
to have it vetoed by President Buchanan — a severe 
blow to the Democracy of Michigan who found it 
difficult to find arguments to conciliate their followers, 
l^ut a most telling campaign argument for the Re- 
publicans. 

Realizing that it is always "good politics" for the 
minority to attack the majority for extravagance, 
J\lr. Chandler made many speeches on this subject 
during the sessions 1857-58 and 1858-59. His speeches 
-arraigning the Democrats for extravagance and cor- 
rupt practices were excellent for home consumption. 
On February 17, 1859, he spoke against a bill ap- 
propriating thirty million dollars to facilitate the 
>^ acquisition of Cuba by negotiation : 

"This money is a great corruption fund for bribery 

6. Cong. Globe, 1st Sess. 35th Cong., p. 2674. 



EARLY YEARS IN U. S. SENATE 47 

and bribery only. It is a proposition worthy of 

the brigand; worthy of James Buchanan The 

friends of the measure have no more idea of purchasing 
Cuba under it than I have of buying it on private ac- 
count. They are to go before the country upon this 
cry of Cuba and upon it they hope to float into power 
again in 1860. Vain, fallacious hope. Forty Cubas 
and three hundred million dollars as a bribery and 
corruption fund would not save the Democratic party 
from that annihilation which the Almighty has de- 
creed."^ 

The 36th Congress opened in December 1859 under 
the excitement of the John Brown affair and of Helper's 
Impendijig Crisis.^ In a speech on a resolution to 
appoint a committee to investigate the John Brown 
raid, Mr. Chandler ridiculed the panic in Virginia 
consequent upon a raid of 17 men upon a town of 2,000 
inhabitants, repudiated the charge that the Republican 
party was responsible for the foray, and addressing 
the Southern members, in passionate words exclaimed,'^ 
"John Brown has been executed as a traitor in Vir- 
ginia, and I want it to go upon the records of the 
Senate in the most solemn manner and to be held up 
as a warning to traitors, come they from the North, 
South, East or West — dare to raise your impious 
hands against this Government, against our Con- 
stitution and our laws and you hang. Sir, I care not 
whether that traitor be a Garrisonean Abolitionist 
or whether he be a Southern Governor who 

7. Cong. Globe, 2nd Sess. 35th Cong., 1079-1083. 

8. Published two years before, but only now prominently 

before the public. 

9. Dec. 7, 1859, Globe, 1st Sess. 36th Cong., p. 34. 



48 ZACHARIAH CHANDLER 

proclaims that in certain events he will raise his 
traitorous hand against the Constitution and the 
Union, I want this record to stand and to stand sol- 
emnly before the Senate — let the traitor hang. Threats 
have been m.ade year after year for the last thirty 
years, that in certain events this Union will be dis- 
solved. Sir, it is no small thing to dissolve this Union. 
It means a bloody revolution or it means a halter. It 
means a successful over-turning of this Government, 
or it means the fate of John Brown, and I want that to 
go solemnly on the records of this Senate." 

^ As a prominent member of a group of Northern 

fire-eaters, Mr. Chandler was cordially hated and 

/ often insulted by the Democrats. On May 2, 1860, 
Mr. Fitch of Indiana referred to him in a speech in 
the Senate as "that Xantippe in pants. "^" The gross 
personal abuse heaped upon Northern radicals by their 
political opponents at length became unbearable and 
resulted in an agreement between Mr. Chandler, 
Benjamin F. Wade and Simon Cameron, to resent any 
repetition of such conduct by challenge to fight, and, 
in the precise words of the compact, ''to carry the 
quarrel mto a coffin ^^^ 
^ In the election of 1860 Mr. Chandler was a most 
K indefatigable campaigner. On October 5, in reply to 
an invitation to speak in IlHnois, Mr. Chandler wrote 
to Lyman Trumbull: 

"I can talk twice a day indoors or once to a large 

10. Cong. Globe, 1st Scss. 36th Cong., p. 2403. 

11. A memorandum in regard to this agreement was drawn x\\) 

and signed by the three concerned, on May 26, 1874. 
Three copies only were made. Mr. Wade's copy is given 
in A. G. Riddle's Life of Benjamin F. Wade, pp. 215-216. 



EARLY YEARS IN U. S. SENATE 49 

crowd out doors with an occasional evening meeting 
under cover. As to night traveUng fatigue of it, it is 
not of the sHghtest consequence. Make your ap- 
pointments where the}^ can he met and the}^ shall he. 
I will rest after Election. I usually speak here twice 
a day, once in and once out of doors. "^- 

In August Mr. Chandler was speaking in New York i^' 
and New England. Septem.ber found him back in 
time to meet WilHam H. Seward who was entertained 
during his stay in Detroit at Mr. Chandler's home. 
September was a busy month in Michigan, with 
Seward, Chandler, B. F. Wade, C. F. Adams, F. W. 
Kellogg, Austin Blair and many lesser lights stumping 
the State for the Republicans. The last two weeks in 
October found Mr. Chandler helping Trumbull in 
Illinois. X 

Mr. Chandler tried hard but unsuccessfully to get 
Mr. Lincoln to visit Detroit during the campaign. 
On August 28, Mr. Chandler wrote Lyman Trumbull :'' 

"Detroit, Mich. Aug. 28, 1860. 
"Hon. L. Trumbull, 

"My Dear Sir: I want you and Mrs. Trumbull in 
com.pany with Mr. and Mrs. Lincoln to visit Detroit 
and become my guests on the 2nd of Oct. at the time 
of our State Fair. C. M. Clay and family will be with 
me — Reasons: 1st, Michigan is one of the certain 
States by an overwhelming majority and therefore no 
poHtical reason can be assigned. 2nd, If there is a 

- 12. MS letter dated Detroit, Oct. 5, 1860, Trumbull papers, 
Library of Cong. 
13. MS letter, Trumbull papers, Library of Cong. 

7 



50 ZACHARIAH CHANDLER 

doubtful State (which I do not admit), it is the State 
of New York. All the money, all the effort, all the 
rascality is to be expended upon that State and we may 
as well prepare now for a solid opposition there for in 
my 'opinion it is sure to come. Our Friends are true 
as Steel and co7ifident. I have been there and yet 
Bigelow of the Post [?] only promised 10,000 majority 
in case of a solid opposition. This is about 1-4 of 
1 per cent upon the vote of the State. I am now 
talking confidentially to you and sincerely and looking 
at the dark side. A visit here from Mr. Lincoln would 
react tremendously upon New York. This was a 
Seward State. Thousands would come from New 
York to see Mr. Lincoln and they would find an 
amount of enthusiasm here which would react power- 
fully through Western New York. Office Seekers 
shall be excluded and no speech from him shall be 
solicited. I conferred [?] with several of Our most 
judicious friends in New York upon this subject & 
they were all of the opinion that it would be a good 
movement. The Michigan Central R. R. will place a 
car at the exclusive disposal of Mr. Lincoln and com- 
pany both ways Free of expense. I will come to 
Illinois at any time you wish after the 15th of Oct. & 
if desirable will bring W. A. Howard & One or two 
more A 1 speakers. I have this day written Mr. 
Lincoln simply extending the invitation and stating 
that I would write more fully to you. Will you not 
confer with or write to Mr. Lincoln and let me hear 
from you at your Early convenience and oblige, 
"Very truly yours, 

"Z. Chandler." 



EARLY YEARS IN U- S. SENATE 51 

The election of 1860 was a triumph for the Repub- L^ 
licans of the Northwest. Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, 
Michigan, Wisconsin, Iowa — all gave Republican ma- 
jorities. The new apportionment of Representatives 
resulted in large gains in the House, and from this 
time on the Republicans of the Northwest were a 
powerful factor in the councils of the nation. /< 

In regard to the financial situation following the 
election of Mr. Lincoln, Chandler wrote :^^ 

"Detroit, Nov. 17, 1860. 
"Hon. Lyman Trumbull 
"My dear Sir 

"The mercantile world is in a ferment, even some 
good reliable Republicans are alarmed and wish some- 
thing done. Now I have no fear that the senseless 
Southern howl will affect Mr. Lincoln in the least, 
but I do fear that this Republican alarm may extend 
even to Springfield. Having been a life long mer- 
chant, associating with this very class described, my 
opinions ought to be entitled to some little weight and 
I have no doubt that they will receive all that they 
are entitled to. 

"From the days of Carthage to those of James Bucha- 
nan the great mercantile centres have been peaceable — • 
ever ready to hire deferiders, not furnish them, ever 
ready to buy immunity but not to fight for it. Yet 
this spirit has not and does not extend beyond the 
suburbs of the great commercial marts. New Jersey 
is a mere suburb of New York City and has been — of 
her vote. A panic can be gotten up to order at any 
14. Z. C. to Lyman Trumbull, Trumbull papers. 



52 ZACHARIAH CHANDLER 

time by these gentry — witness the U. S. Bank Panic 
upon Gen. Jackson and the disunion Monetary panic 
to defeat Air. Lincoln. 

"These panic makers are now being swept out of 
existence by the rebound of their own missile and / 
thank God for it. The South paA's nothing and the 
Union — are the only sufferers directly but indirectly 
others suffer and I am sorry for it but there is no 
remedy except the natural one. Let the storm ex- 
haust its fury and there will come a calm. I am to- 
day one of the large sufferers having over 100,000 
dollars in the vortex of business besides a large amount 
in stocks which have greatly depreciated. There- 
fore I have a right to speak as a sufferer and sym- 
pathizer and I now say as such dont pay the slightest 
attention to this mercantile howl. We shall be better 
off six months or a year hence by settling this question 
of secession and panic now and forever. This is 
either a Government to be sustained or a thing to be 
destroyed. If it is a Government let us stand by and 
sustain it — if a thing without the power of self pro- 
tection Jet it perish and the sooner the better. These 
fellows now want concessions to induce them not to do 
what they dare not attempt to do. Let us have a 
regular Gen. Jackson Administration and no com- 
promises or- is the earnest wish of 

"Your friend 

"Z. Chandler. 

"P. S. My ankle is very much better although I am 
still confined to the house." 



CHAPTER VII 

The War Begins 

yACHARIAH CHANDLER and bluff "Ben." Wade 
were among the first to realize that war was in- 
evitable, but they were not the men to shrink from the 
prospect. A keen observer of affairs in Washington^ ^ 
wrote in December, 1860, "There is only one body of 
politicians of the multitude assembled here which 
-shows a cheerful steadiness amidst the fluctuations 
of rumor and of men's moods; and that is the stout 
band of Repubhcan members from the North-West." 

The Michigan delegation in Congress was opposed ^ 
to all compromise propositions. Hon. Henry Waldron, / 
Representative of the Second District, wrote- from 
Washington on January 4, 1861: "I do not think 
that you need be apprehensive about compromises .... 
The sentiment of our delegation is that we have 
nothing to concede, compromise or apologize for." 

Michigan sent no delegates to the Peace Congress. V^ 
On February 11, Mr. Chandler, fearing that the Peace 
Congress might agree upon a compromise proposition, 
wrote a letter to Governor Blair^ urging him to send 
delegates, " stift'-backed men or none," who would 

1. The correspondent of the London Daily News as quoted 

by the Detroit Advertiser, Jan. 22, 1861. 

2. Free Press, Jan. 25, 1861, quoting letter published by a 

Republican paper at Jonesville, Mich. 

3. Cong. Globe, 2nd Sess. 36th Cong., p. 1247. This letter as 

well as Mr. Bingham's is given in Post-Tribune "Life " 
p. 190. 



y 



54 ZACHARIAH CHANDLER 

vote against compromise. In a postscript he added, 
"Without a Httle blood-letting this Union will not, 

X in my estimation, be worth a rush." On the 15th 
Senator Bingham of Michigan also wrote Governor 
Blair urging him to send delegates to the Peace Con- 
gress and saying, in substance, that the Michigan 
delegates would hold the balance of power and could 
prevent compromise.^ 

Mr. Chandler's letter of the 11th gained him the 

^ title of "Blood-letter." It was often used against 
him by his enemies but he always defended himself^ 
by quoting Thos. Jefferson: "What signify a few 
lives lost in a century or two? The tree of liberty 
must be replenished from time to time with the blood 
of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure." 
Mr. Chandler's speech of March 2 was a powerful 
one.^ He began it with a vigorous defense of the 

4. On March 2 Mr. Chandler voted against the Conrin 

proposition that "no amendment shall be made to the 
Constitution which will authorize or give Congress power 
to abolish or interfere within any State with the domestic 
institutions thereof, including that of persons held to 
labor or servitude by the laws of said State."* On the 
same day, he voted against the Crittenden Compromise 
which proposed to make the line of 36° 30' the boundary 
between slave and free territory.^ On July 25, however, 
he voted for the Crittenden Resolution, introduced into 
the Senate by Andrew Johnson, which declared that the 
war was waged simply "to defend and maintain the 
supremacy of the Constitution and to preserve .the 
Union" and not "for purpose of overthrowing established 
institutions."'' 

a. Globe, 2nd Sess. 36th Cong., p. 1403. 

1). Ibid., 2nd Sess. 36th Cong., p. 1405. 

c. Ibid., 1st Sess. 37th Cong., p. 265. 

5. See his speech of Mar. 2, 1861, Cong. Globe, 2nd Sess. 36ih 

Cong., pp. 1370-72. 

6. Globe, 2nd Sess. 36th Cong., pp. 1370-1372. 




ZACHAKIAH CHANDLER 

Eugene Hale, Ells- 



From a daguerreotype in the possession of M 
worth, Maine. 



CIVIL WAR BEGINS 55 

"blood-letter" and then taking up the demand for 
compromise, exclaimed: "Mr. President, this is not 
a question of compromise; this is a question whether 
we have, or have not, a Government. If we have a 
Government, it is capable of making itself respected 
abroad and at home. If we have not a Government 
let this miserable rope of sand which purports to be a 
Government perish, and I will shed no tears over its 

destruction we are told that six states have 

seceded, and the Union is broken up; and all we can 
do is to send commissioners to treat with traitors 
with arms in their hands; treat with men who have 
fired upon your flag; treat with men who have seized 
your custom-houses, who have erected batteries upon 
your navigable waters and who now stand defying 
your authority .... Sir, I will never submit to this 
degradation. If the right is conceded to any vState to 
secede from the Union without the consent of the 
other States, I am for immediate dissolution; and if 
the State which I have the honor in part to represent 
will not follow that advice, I for one, upon my own 
responsibility and alone, w411 resign my seat in this 
body, and leave this Government. So soon as I can 
prepare the small matters, I shall have to arrange for 
emigration to some countr>^ where they have a Gov- 
ernment. Sir, I would rather join the Comanches; 
I will never live under a Government that has not the 
power to enforce its laws." 

The remarks of Senator Wigfall of Texas' in reply to 
Mr. Chandler's speech illustrate the acerbity of the 
debates at this period. "Mr. President," began Sena- 

7. Ibid., 2nd Sess. 36th Cong., p. 1372. 



56 



ZACHARIAH CHANDLER 



tor Wigfall. "it was said by a Scotchman, boasting 
of h^ parson, that 'he was a most po'orful preacher^ 
for he had pounded three pulpits to pieces and banged 
he life out of five bibles.' Of course I do not mean 
t for anvbodv . . .1 have observed Sir, during a not 
verTlong Ufe that those who are most in the habit o 
tekLg their tongues off the civil list, have another 
habft and that i°s, of keeping their weapons upon the 

peace establishment The Senator says that » 

Lrtam contingencies, he will turn Comanch^ God 
forbid' I hope not. They have already suttered 
much from their contact with the whites. 

Late in January Mr. Chandler took part m the de- 
bate on the Pacific Railway bill. On the 29th he 
S«° I am very anxious to vote for any measure 
M will secure the building of a P-Ec railroad- 
On a proposed amendment, namely, And no mort 
gage or construction bonds, shall ever be issued by 
:fd 'company on said road, or "Wge or hen made 
in any way except to the United States, Mr. Chandler 
rarked.-' "I want this road built and whe^h- it b 
built on stocks or not is immaterial to "^e =o ^ha the 
road itself be built .... Sir, this proposition is an 
abrfv upon its face. No railroad ever was bui 
^rTn my judgment ever will be completed without 
the power of borrowing money ' 



8 Ibid., 2nd Scss. 36th Cong., p. 609. 
9. Ibid., 2nd Sess. 36th Cong., p. 61 ' . ^ ^ proposed 

10. The matter was compromised by an f;"^^|^^^^^^^^ ^^No 

said company on f ^^^ . °f ^^^^'^„^^^^^^^ CAobc, 2nd 

shall liavc been subscribed and expenaea. 
Sess. 36th Cong., p. 638. 



CIVIL WAR BEGINS 57 

As rebellion advanced during the spring of 1861 
Mr. Chandler "was furious over the state of inactivity 
which prevailed. He urged President Lincoln to 
arrest Breckenridge, Wigfall and other traitors who 
were making disloyal speeches in Congress. "^^ Radical 
pressure on General Scott and the Administration re- 
sulted in the Battle of Bull Run. Senators Chandler 
and Wade and Sergeant-at-Arms Brown of the Senate, 
were so anxious to see the rebels whipped that they 
proceeded to the scene of conflict in a carriage, and 
when the battle began to turn against the Union arms 
they leaped from their carriages and w'ith pistols 
drawn attempted to halt the panic stricken soldiers. ^'- 
Undaunted by the defeat at Bull Run, Senators Wade, 
Chandler and Trumbull called upon the President 
October 26 and "earnestly represented to him the 
importance of immediate action.^" Two days later 
they had another conference with the President and 
Mr. Seward, at the house of the latter. . . .They 
called tipon Gen. McClellan also and in the course of 
an animated conversation, Mr. Wade said an un- 
successful battle was preferable to delay; a defeat 
would be easily repaired by the swarming recruits. . . . 
McClellan represented Gen. Scott as the obstacle to 
immediate action, and skilfully diverted the zeal of 
the Senators against the General-in-Chief." At 1.15 
a. m. the next mornino; McClellan wrote: "For the 



11. C. E. Hamlin, Hannibal Hamlin, p. 397. 

12. A letter written a dav later by A. G. Riddle is given in 

Riddle, B. F. Wade, p. 244, note. See also. Cox, 
Three Decades, p. 158 and Riddle, Recollections of War 
Times, p. 45. 

13. Nicolav and Hav, Lincoln, IV, 467. 



58 ZACHARIAH CHANDLER 

last three hours I have been at Montgomery Blair's, 
talking with Senators Wade, Chandler and Trumbull 
about war matters. They will make a desperate effort 
to-morrow to have Gen. Scott retired at once. . . ."^* 

•^ On December 5, 1861 Mr. Chandler offered a reso- 
lution in the Senate to appoint a committee of three 
to inquire into the disasters of Bull Run and Edward's 
Ferry, with power to send for persons and papers. ^^ 
The resolution of Mr. Chandler was debated and he 

X accepted the substitute of Mr. Grimes, ^"^ 

''Resolved by the Senate (the House of Representa- 
tives concurring), That a joint committee of three 
members of the Senate, and four members of the 
House of Representatives, be appointed to inquire 
into the conduct of the present war, and that they 
have the power to send for persons and papers, and to 
sit during the sessions of either House of Congress." 

^ The Seiiate agreed to this resolution by a vote of 33 
to 3 and thus was inaugurated the famous "Smelling 
Committee," or "Committee on the Conduct of the 
War." The first meeting of this Committee was held 
December 20, 1861, the day after the House had ap- 

y^ pointed its members. On motion of Mr. Chandler it 
was agreed to at once to proceed with an investigation 
into the disaster of the first battle of Bull Run. The 
function of the Committee was to inquire into the con- 
duct of the war and to bring out facts which would 
enable the President and the Cabinet to administer 
more effectively and enable Congress to legislate more 

14. McClellan's Own Story, p. 171. 

15. Cong. Globe, 2nd Sess. 37th Cong., p. 16. 

16. Ccm^. Globe, 2nd Sess. 37th Cong., p. 32. 



CIVIL WAR BEGINS 59 

intelligently. This Conimittee also investigated the 
disaster to the Union arms at Ball's Bluff, the failure of 
the Red River expedition under Banks, the Fort 
Pillow massacre, the conduct of Fremont in adminis- 
tering affairs in the Western Department, the failure 
of the attack on Petersburg, in July, 1864, the trade 
in military districts, the treatment of prisoners in 
Southern prisons, "Rebel Barbarities" — in fact, the 
field of their activity was wide and their labors were 
untiring. They examined hundreds of witnesses and 
published huge volumes of testimony. Whether, upon 
the whole, the influence of the Committee made for 
good or evil is perhaps a debatable question. Certain 
it is that at the time public opinion was divided upon 
the point. The Senate was represented on this Com- 
mittee by Benjamin F. Wade of Ohio, Zachariah 
Chandler of Michigan and Andrew Johnson of Tennes- 
see — all radicals. Wade, Chandler and Andrew John- 
son were particularly lacking in the judicial tempera- 
ment. They were narrow-minded and bitter partisans. 
Mr. Chandler regarded Benjamin Butler as a spotless 
hero and General McClellan as a traitor secretly 
pledged to Southern rebels. The findings of such 
men in a time of intense national excitement were 
necessarily biased and prejudiced. 

17. Some of the testimony on this subject was gruesome. 

One witness testified the Southerners opened the graves 
of Northern soldiers, boiled the flesh from the bones and 
used "Yankee shin-bones" for drum-sticks. Report, 
part III, p. 476. 

18. Testimony taken before the Committee upon such a point, 

for example, as the causes for the failure of the Red River 
expedition, in 1864, was conflicting. The present writer 
does not care to say that the finding of the Committee 



60 ZACHARIAH CHANDLER 

The inactivity of McClellan during the fall and 
winter of 1861 and 1862 and his scarcely concealed 
contempt for "these wretched politicians" as he called 
them, made them his bitter enemies. The failure of 
the Peninsular campaign gave the radicals the op- 
portunity they desired. On July 16, 1862, Mr. 
Chandler delivered before the Senate^ ^ a scathing 
criticism upon McClellan' s generalship — a criticism 
written, according to rumor, by Secretary Stanton.-" 
The removal of McClellan and the promotion of Pope 
brought the disastrous second battle of Bull Run. 
Mr. Chandler expressed his sentiments to Mr. Trum- 
bull in the following letter marked "confidential." 

"Detroit, Sept. 10th, 1862. 
''My Dear Sir.-^ 

"It is treason rank [?] treason call it by what name 
you will, that has caused our late disasters, jealousy 
and discontent at the removal of ]\IcClellan & pro- 
motion of Pope will be the cause assigned but when 
ruin, death & the probable destruction of the Govt, 
is the effect of disobedience of orders treason is the 
cause. I fear nothing will ever serve us but a demand 
of the loyal Governors backed by a threat, — that a 

was right here and wrong there. From an examination 
of the personnel of the Committee, however, we may 
perhaps arrive at an approximate estimate of the aecuracy 
of their conclusions. For an elaborate and bitter ar- 
raignment of the Committee one may consult the Joy 
Pamphlet as given in the Detroit Free Press, Jan. 10, 1863. 

19. Cong. Globe, 2nd Sess. 37th Cong., pp. 3386-3392. 

20. Free Press, August 5, 1862. Not that the writer beheves 

the rumor, though Stanton may have supplied some of 
the ideas expressed on the military strategy of McClellan. 

21. MS letter, Trumbull papers. 



CIVIL WAR BEGINS 



61 



change of policy & men shall instantly be made. Are 
they up to the work? The Northwest is but what are 
we to expect from New England. Has she ever stood" 
up to the work in Congress. This seems to me the 
last hope. Your President is unstable as water, if 
he has as I suspect, been bulHed by those traitor 
Generals how long will it be before he will by them be 
set aside & a military dictator- set up. McClellan's 
Army is totally demoraHzed & ready for anything but 
fighting, it will not fight under its present Com- 
manders, the Material is good & the Men will fight if 
reorganized and properly handled. The Army of the 
Northwest is not so bad, but if Buell is kept in com- 
mand thirty days longer I fear it will be even worse. 
For God and the country's sake, send someone to stay 
with the President who will control and hold him. I 
do not despair but my only hope is in the Lord and I 
don't believe he will let us be destroyed. 
"Very truly yours, 

"Z. Chandler," 

The fire-eaters of the Northwest, knowing nothing ^- 
of the art of war, having a supreme contempt for West 
Point training-3 and constantly underrating the 
strength of the Southern armies were to some extent 
at least responsible for the premature battles, constant 
change of commanders, and disastrous defeats of the 
Union arms. Acting through the Committee on the 
Conduct of the War, they did injury and injustice to 

22. Illegible. 

23. See Mr. Chandler's speech in the Senate on West Point 

delivered Dec. 23, 1861 {Cong. Globe, 2nd Sess. 37th 
Cong., pp. 164-65). 



62 ZACHARIAH CHANDLER 

able and conscientious generals. And yet it was the 
courage, patriotism and absolute faith of the radicals 
of the Northwest in the ultimate victory of the Union 
arms that nerved the Administration in the face of 
the most appalling defeats to still greater efforts to 
subjugate the South. Mr. Chandler never doubted 
but that the war could be ended at any time within 
X thirty or sixty days."''^ No defeat daunted him. No 
disaster caused his courage or zeal to flag. On every 
proposition to sustain the Administration with money 
and men he voted "yea." That he was narrow, 
prejudiced and often unjust in his judgments must 
be admitted. That his interference in military matters 
and his intermeddling with the affairs of men more 
capable within their spheres than he, is no doubt true. 
But it was the indomitable will, splendid courage and 
patriotic fervor of the little band of the Northwestern 
radicals that caused the war to be prosecuted with 
such unflagging zeal, that prevented concessions or 
compromises with slavery and helped to make this 
land what it is today. 

The policy of confiscating rebel property was heartily 
supported by Mr. Chandler. He refused to vote for 
the bill of June 30, 1862, on the ground that it was 
"utterly worthless." But the more stringent measure 
of July 12 received his support. He took an active 
part in the debates on the Tax bill of 1862, and in all 
financial discussions proved his shrewdness as a busi- 
ness man. 



24. Sec, for example, his speech in the Senate, Feb. 12, 1862 
(Cong. Globe, 2nd Sess. 37th Cong., p. 774). 



CHAPTER VIII 

The Campaign of 1862 in Michigan and Mr. 

Chandler's Second Election to the 

United States Senate 

n^HE Senatorial election of January, 1859, resulted in 
the retirement of Charles E. Stuart, Democrat, 
and the election of Kinsley S. Bingham, RepubHcan, 
to the United States Senate. Mr. Bingham died 
October 5, 1861, and the question of his successor be- 
came at once a matter of interest to the politicians. 
Jacob M. Howard, Isaac P. Christiancy, Hezekiah G. 
Wells and Austin Blair were all candidates for the 
place. Mr. Chandler was particularly anxious that 
Howard should not be elected. Mr. Howard was a 
Detroit man and with both Senators from Detroit 
there was danger that the locality argument would be 
used effectively against the re-election of Mr. Chandler 
in 1863. Early in November, 1862, j\Ir. Howard, 
doubtless through Mr. Chandler's influence, was ten- 
dered the appointment of Minister to Honduras.^ 
Mr. Howard, however, refused to be exiled to Hon- 
duras to promote the political prospects of Senator 
Chandler and decHned the offer.- According to the 
Free Press, Chandler then threw his influence in favor 
of H. G. Wells of Kalamazoo.^ The contest finally 

1. Free Press, November 9, 1861. 

2. Free Press, November 16, 1861. 

3. Free Press, January' 4, 1862. 



64 ZACHARIAH CHANDLER 

narrowed down to a fight between Governor Blair, 
J. M. Howard and H. G. Wells. Blair was a radical 
of the Chandler type but there was a constitutional 
objection to his election. In the end Howard was 
chosen, and this result was not unnatural, for the con- 
servative influence had been growing in strength and 
Howard was regarded as more conservative than either 
Chandler or his candidate Wells. His election was 
heralded by the Democrats as a Conservative victory 
and as a portent of the defeat of Chandler in 1863.^ 
Once elected, however, he became as radical as the 
"Great Blood-letter" him.self. 

Howard was a scholarly man, a polished orator, an 
excellent constitutional lawyer and a highly respected 
citizen. His relations with the "rough and ready" 
Zachariah Chandler, although amicable enough, were 
not congenial. Howard cared nothing about "the 
offices" and, as Chandler cared a great deal about 
them, the distribution of the federal patronage was 
controlled by Chandler. 

\y During his first term in the Senate, Chandler used 

the federal patronage to entrench himself in power. 
He gained control of the machinery of the Republican 
party in Michigan and used it to further his political 
interests. When the Democratic State Central Com- 
mittee wrote to the RepubHcan State Central Com- 
mittee proposing a Union Convention to nominate 
candidates for the Legislature in 1862, they found the 
radical Republican element in control and the prop- 

y^ osition was declined.^ 

4. Free Press, January 11, 1863, quoting State papers. 

5. The correspondence is given in the Free Press, Sept. 6, 1862. 




A( op. yi. IIOWAKD 



SECOND ELECTION TO U. S. SENATE 65 

The breach between the radical and the conser- 
vative elements in the Republican party which was 
disclosed in the Senatorial campaign of 1862 widened 
as the months went by. In spite of the refusal of the 
Republican State Central Committee to join the Demo- 
crats in a Union Convention, the Democrats began to 
call themselves "Union Democrats" and "Fusionists." 
By this they hoped to gain the support of conservative 
Republicans who opposed Chandler and the radical 
policy. In this they met with some success, for con- 
serv^ative Republicans had to choose between the 
Democratic party, calling itself the Union party but 
repudiated by the regular Republican organization, 
and the Republican party dominated by the radicals, 
which stigmatized the Union movement as " fire-in-the- 
rear Democracy." 

During the campaign of 1862 Zachariah Chandler tX' 
was the personification of radical Republicanism in 
Michigan, His reelection to the United States Senate 
was the most prominent issue in the campaign. "Let y( 
every m.an running for the Legislature be questioned 
by the voters as to whether he will, under any cir- 
cumstances, vote for Chandler. Whoever declines to 
say 'no' ought to be beaten at the polls," cried his 
opponents.*^ The Democrats were well aware that the 
Republican candidates could not answer "no." Mr. ./' 
Chandler's agents had been busy in township caucuses 
and county and legislative district conventions. They 
had seen to it that only Chandler men received Re- 
publican nominations for the Legislature. By 1862 
Mr. Chandler owned the Republican organization from 

6. Free Press, November 1, 1862. 
9 



66 ZACHARIAH CHANDLER 

the State Central Committee down to the most obscure 
y^ caucus. In the slang phrase of the day, "Zachariah 
Chandler carried the Republican organization in his 
breeches' pockets." His power was due in part to his 
control over the federal patronage and to a judicious 
use of money, but it rested upon a solid basis of popular 
support. The Republicans of Michigan regarded him 
as one who "stood like a lion in the path of the *fire- 
in-the-rear' traitors who have labored to damn the 
fair fame of Michigan for loyalty and patriotism in the 
war for national existence."^ 

The campaign of 1862 in Michigan cannot be called 
an "educative" campaign. Ridicule and abuse were 
greatly relied upon by both sides. No distinct issue, 
other than the reelection of Mr. Chandler, divided the 
parties. Mr. Chandler, as a leading member of the 
Committee on the Conduct of the War, was denounced 
for the defeats of the Union arms and assailed as the 
author of the "Blood letter." On September 17, 
1862, Mr. Chandler wrote to Lyman Trumbull,^ 

"I want you to give me as much of the month of 
October as possible. I am all right if we carry the 
State, but the Browning-Cowan faction are trying to 
get up an anti-confiscation, no-party union with the 
Locos. We shall take solid [?] ground upon Con- 
fiscation & the use of all the elements which God and 
Nature have placed in our hands to crush the Re- 
bellion. Come directly to my house. I will pay all 
expenses." 

7. Port Huron Press, as quoted in Detroit Advertiser and 

Tribune, November 14, 1862. 

8. MS letter, Trmnhnll Papers, Library of Congress. 



SECOND ELECTION TO U- S- SENATE 67 

The Republicans denounced fusion as "secession in 
disguise" and advocated a vigorous prosecution of the 
war. The battle of Antietam and the pubHcation of 
the Emancipation Proclamation were hailed with joy 
by the radicals and undoubtedly helped them to carry 
the election. On November 9, Mr. Chandler wrote 
to a close friend, Charles T. Gorham, of Marshall, 
Calhoun County, Michigan: 

"Detroit, Nov. 9th, 1862. 
"Hon. Chas. T. Gorham, 

"My Dear Sir: You have done nobly in Calhoun. 
I wish I could say so much for Wayne, but here we have 
had Secret Conservatism, Democracy & the Devil to 
contend with & they [?] were too much for us. The 
Catholic Church was solid against vis and at least 
4-5ths of the Episcopal. Still we were never so strong 
in the State as we are to-day. If the President will 
now order on the columns and close the war before 
spring as he can there will be no resurrection for Secret 
Sympathizers or Conservatives after the soldiers return. 
I go to Washington tomorrow evening & I shall express 
my views mildly to Father Abraham. Shall be absent 
only a week. 

"Very truly yours, 

"Z. Chandler." 

When the Legislature met in January, 1863, the i/^ 
first business was the election of a Senator. The Re- ^ 
publican press argued that since the reelection of 
Senator Chandler was the main issue in the election 
of 1862, the result of the election was to be interpreted 



68 ZACHARIAH CHANDLER 

as expressing the popular will that Mr. Chandler 
v/ should again be sent to the Senate.^ Mr. Chandler 
was on hand in Lansing personally directing his sub- 
ordinates and superintending his interests. His lobby 
was immense, including nearly every federal- office- 
holder in the State from the army of collectors and 
assessors to petty postmasters from the rural districts. 
The nomination of Mr. Chandler by an open unani- 
mous vote upon the first informal ballot in the Re- 
publican caucus^" is most convincing evidence of his 
political power and the efficiency of his political 
A- methods. ^^ 

James F. Joy of Detroit, a conservative Republican 
and a boyhood friend of Mr. Chandler, was nominated 
by the Fusionists. Mr, Joy was not present in Lansing. 
He did not want the nomination and though he could 
not decline it until after the election, owing to the lack 
of, telegraphic communication between Detroit and 
Lansing, he undoubtedly would have done so if it had 
been possible. He had written an "Address to the 
Legislature"^- which, piinted in pamphlet form, was 

9. Advertiser and Trihtme, January 6, 1863. 

10. Free Press, Jan. 9, 1863, The Advertiser and Tribune, Jan. 

10, said : "It is safe to affirm that at least in the North- 
em States no man was ever sent to Washington as Sen- 
ator by a unanimous vote upon the first infomial 
caucus ballot." 

11. The Free Press, Jan. 7, 1863, states that Mr. Chandler was 

so confident of his reelection that he shipped the cham- 
pagne for his Senatorial dinner to Lansing before the 
Republican caucus had even met to nominate him. 
Whether true or not, this story might just as well be true 
so far as Mr. Chandler's confidence in his reelection is 
concerned. 

12. This address is printed in full in the Free Press, January 

10, 1863. 



SECOND ELECTION TO U. S. SENATE 69 

laid Upon the desks of members of the Legislature the 
morning of the Senatorial election. In this he charged 
Mr. Chandler and the radicals with unduly meddling 
in military affairs and thereby causing the failure of 
the Peninsular campaign and other defeats of the 
Union armies. He arraigned Mr. Chandler for al- 
lowing his organ, the Detroit Advertiser, to accept a 
challenge from the Free Press to make the reelection 
of Mr. Chandler to the Senate the issue in the cam- 
paign of 1862. 

The radicals gave the conservatives no time to allo\\' 
the arguments in this pamphlet to exert an influence 
on the members of the Legislature. Through adroit 
parliamentary tactics, ^^ which included a vigorous use 
of the previous question, the Senatorial election was 
pushed through both houses by the Republican ma- 
jority without delay^"* and on January 8, the second 
day of the session, the Legislature in joint convention 
declared Zachariah Chandler elected to the United 
States Senate for another term of six years. 

13. For an interesting account of these, see letter from Lansing- 

Correspondent in Free Press, January 13, 1863. 

14. The vote in the House was — - 

Chandler 60 

Tas. F. Joy 34 

S. L. Withcy 1 



60 to 35 

The vote in the Senate was — 
Chandler 18 

Joy 11 

Felch 2 

Wells 1 



18 to 14 



/ 



CHAPTER IX 

In the Senate, 1863 and 1864 

nPHE bill to provide a national currency based on 
United States bonds received Mr. Chandler's 
>v hearty support. On February 11, 1863, he said in the 
Senate:^ "This is a part of the great financial question 
which is in my judgment the great question in the 
conduct of the war. If we can keep our finances 
sound, if we can create a demand for our bonds, if we 
can keep our Treasury supplied, we know and all the 
world knows, that we can put down this rebellion. 
If our finances fail, the nation fails. I believe that all 
there is in this bill is good. In the first place, if it 
accomplishes anything, it produces a demand for your 
Government securities. . . .Again, it suppHes you with 
a better currency than the local banks now furnish. 
It furnishes the people with a currency based upon 
United States stocks, whereas the circulation of the 

New England banks is based upon nothing I had 

hoped that the New England banks and the other 
eastern banks that have been flooding the West with 
their paper for some years past, would be sufficiently 
patriotic to come in and take these bonds. . . .Sir, it 

is true that they do send their circulation out 

west; and we do not thank them for it. . . .We prefer 
that the Government should occupy this vacuum 
which is to-day filled by these Eastern banks. This 

1. Globe, 3rd Sess. 37th Conj;., p. 877. 



IN U. S. SENATE 1863-64 71 

is a question of whether you will legislate for a few 
petty banks in New England or whether you will 
legislate for the preservation of this great nation. 
That is the question you are voting on now. Sir, I ^ 
will sacrifice banks and negroes and everything else to 
save this nation; and I trust the Senate is equally 
patriotic." 

As a Western business man, Mr. Chandler had vx^ 
suffered from the flood of bank paper, much of it from 
New England, which circulated in his State. In sup- 
porting this bill he was not only working for the 
Union, but more particularly he was the champion 
of the debtor Northwest against the banking interests 
of the Northeast. The Detroit Advertiser a?id Trihiine, 
June 21, 1864 said: "Last Saturday was pay-day for 

the em.ployees of the Advertiser and Tribune the 

bills of 66 State banks were employed in the payment 
of not quite $400.00. The only Michigan bill was a 
Michigan Insurance 'one.' With very few exceptions 
each bank was represented by but one bill." 

In urging the passage of the Currency bill the paper 
continued: "Let us have the uniform National system 

Let us no longer be compelled to remember from 

whom it was we received each bill in our possession or 
to rush to our bankers with each half dozen bills we 
take to ascertain their genuineness and value or to 
deposit them lest they should spoil upon our hands." 

Mr. Chandler favored a prohibition tax by the 
National Government upon State bank note circula- 
tion^ and opposed State and local taxation of bank 

2. Globe, 3rd Scss. 37th Conc^., p. 929. 



72 ZACHARIAH CHANDLER 

stocks invested in United States bonds.^ Upon the 
constitutional question involved he said: "Sir, I have 
not got the Constitution on the brain .... I believe that 
it is constitutional to do whatever is requisite to save 
the Constitution and the Government." 

On February 19, 1863, Mr. Chandler introduced a 
bilP to provide for the collection of abandoned property 
in insurrectionary districts, for the purchase of staples 
— cotton — by Treasury agents and the prevention of 
frauds in connection with property captured or bought 
in the Southern States by officers in the Army, Navy 
or Treasury Department. During the debate on this 
bill Mr. Chandler defended General Butler against 
a charge brought by Senator Davis that he, Butler, 
had connived with his brother to seize abandoned 
property in Louisiana for private gain.^ To an ob- 
jection that the bill was unjust to rebels and uncon- 
stitutional Mr. Chandler replied:*^ "A rebel has sacri- 
ficed all his rights. He has no right to life, liberty or 
the pursuit of happiness." 

The following letter was written by Mr. Chandler 
to Lyman Trumbull:" 

"Detroit, August 6th, 1863. 
"Hon. Lyman Trumbull, 
"My Dear Sir: 

"We have in my judgment reached the critical period 
of the war. Had Meade captured Lee's artillery as 
I think he vshould have done, the fighting would have 

3. Globe, 1st Sess. 38th Cong., p. 1872. 

4. Globe, 3rd Sess. 37th Cong., p. 1090. 

5. Feb. 27, 1863, Globe, 3rd Sess. 37th Cong., p. 1334. 

6. Globe, 3rd Sess. 37th Cong., p. 1338. 

7. MS letter, Trumbull Papers, Library of Congress. 



IN U. S. SENATE 1863-64 73 

been ended, or in other words the last great battle of 
the war would have been fought. Now we must fight 
one more tremendous battle & if we are successful the 
bubble will burst. Are we quite ready? The Slavery 
question is settling itself with great rapidity. Every 
negro regiment of a thousand men presents just one 
thousand luiansweraUe arguments against the revoca- 
tion of the President's proclamation & every fight 
wherein a negro regiment distinguishes itself by 

desperate valour as at Port Hudson and [?] adds 

fourfold to their number and weight. Our armies are 
greatly reduced by the returning 9 mos. & two years 
men so much so that I am not quite sure the enem}^ 
may not mass his forces & give us a repulse in some 
quarter although I trust we shall guard against them. 
I don't anticipate much activity during the month of 
August anjrwhere unless a battle should be precipitated 
at or nfear Culpepper, which I do not anticipate, in the 
meantime the draft is going on. Our broken regiments 
are filled up & negro brigades & divisions are being 
added with great rapidity. Stanton assured me 4 
weeks ago to-day that we should have 100,000 negro 
troops in the field within 60 days from that date. I 
have little fear that the President will recede. He is 
stubborn as a mule when he gets his back up & it is 
up now on the proclamation. Seward & Weed are 
shaky [?] but this peculiar trait of stubbornness 
(which annoyed us so much 18 months ago) is now 
our Salvation. I shall remain here during this month 
& should be glad to see you here, present my kind 
regards to Mrs. Trumbull & believe me 

"Very truly yours, 

"Z. Chandler." 



74 ZACHARIAH CHANDLER 

In September^ Mr. Chandler went to Ohio to stump 
the State. A. G. Riddle writes:^ "I met Senator 
Chandler at Painesville early in September and he 
offered to accompany me. He had a single well worn 
and easy going speech, not very long, which always 
closed with a philHpic against England." 

The election being over, "Senator Zachariah 
Chandler^ ° having seen in the newspapers a para- 
graph that Mr. Thurlow Weed and Governor Morgan 
had been in consultation with the President in regard 
to his message, ^^ wrote a vehement letter to the Presi- 
dent telling him that there was a 'patriotic organiza- 
tion in all the free and border states, containing to-day 
over one million of voters, every man of whom is your 
friend upon the radical measures of your Administra- 
tion; but there is not a Seward, Weed or Blair man 
among them all. 'How are these men,' he asked 
'to be of service to you in any way? They are a 
millstone about your neck. You drop them and they 

are politically ended forever Conservatives and 

traitors are buried together. For God's sake don't 
exhume their remains in your message. They will 
smell worse than Lazarus did after he had been buried 
seven days.' There was no man slower than Mr. 
Lincoln to take personal offence at even the most 
indiscreet advice or censure; but he answered this 
letter of Mr. Chandler in a tone of unusual dignity 

8. The 14th, according to letter of Z. Chandler to C. L. Miller, 

Sept. 13, MS letter in State Capitol at Lansing. 

9. Riddle, Recollections of War Times, p. 233. 

10. Nicolay & Hay, A. Lincoln, A History, VII, 388. 

11. The letter was dated Nov. 15, 1863, (note of N. & H.). 



IN U. S. SENATE 1863-64 7o. 

and severity.^- 'I have seen,' he said, 'Governor 
Morgan and Thurlow Weed separately, but not to- 
gether, within the last ten days; but neither of them 
mentioned the forthcoming message or said anything, 
so far as I can remember, which brought the thought 
of the message to my mind. I am very glad the 
elections this autumn have gone favorably and that 
I have not by native depravity or under evil influences 
done anything bad enough to prevent the good result. 
I hope to 'stand firm' enough to not go backward, and 
yet not go forward enough to wreck the country's 
cause.' " 

Mr. Lincoln's message of December 8, 1863, was 
entirely satisfactory to Mr. Chandler. John Hay 
wrote in -his diary, ^'^ "Chandler was delighted." It 
was in this message that the President outlined his 
plan of reconstruction. 

In January, 1864, Mr. Chandler^"^ spoke against 
an amendment to the Enrollment Act to allow com- 
mutation of military service by a money payment — 
"If you want $150.00 and do not want men, vote for 
the amendment. If you want men, do away with the 
exemption entirely and have your men come up or 
furnish substitutes. I am opposed to this whole 
theory of commutation. The Government wants men 
not money." 

On April 1^,.1864, speaking in favor of the bill to 
prohibit speculation in gold^^ Mr. Chandler said: 
"The price of gold is on the point of Grant's bayonets 

12. Dated November 20, 1863. 

13. N. and H., Lincoln, IX, 109. 

14. Tan. 16, 1864, (Slobc, 1st Sess. 38th ConK-, pp. 251-252. 

15. April 15, 1864, Globe, 1st Sess. 38th Cong., p. 1644. 



76 ZACHARIAH CHANDLER 

. . .and when Grant strikes the first crushing blow at 
Lee, as he certainly will within 60 days from to-day, 
you will see such a trouble in gold as the world never 

witnessed before I believe this rebellion is on its 

last legs." 

Mr. Chandler's enthusiasm for the Northwest some- 
times led him into amusing and extravagant state- 
ments. During the debate on the tax bill he said:^® 
''We have a foreign trade. We have a regular line 
from Detroit to Europe. There are just as regular 
lines between Detroit and Liverpool as there are be- 
tween New York and Liverpool only there are not 
quite so many of them." 

Mr. Chandler's hostility towards rebels was only 
exceeded by his hatred of the Copperheads of the 
Northwest. On one occasion, while dining with 
friends at the National Hotel in Washington, Mr. 
Chandler denounced in very strong terms Copperheads 
in general and especially those of the West.^' Ac- 
cording to the newspaper account of the affair, '' Voor- 
hees, of Indiana,^^ who was sitting at another table 
in company with Hannegan, also of Indiana, arose 
from his seat, approached Chandler in an excited 
manner demanding whether he referred to him, to 
which Chandler replied, 'Who are you, Sir, I don't 
know you,' at the same time rising from his chair. 
Voorhees replied, *I am Voorhees, of Indiana,' and 
suiting his action to the word, struck Chandler on the 

16. May 26. 1864. Globe, 1st Sess. 38th Cong., p. 2494. 

17. New York Times, May 27, 1864, (Townscnd Library, 

XLIV. 459). 

18. "Dan" Voorhees, then member of the House of Repre- 

sentatives. 



IX U. S. SENATE 1863-64 77 

side of the face. The two then closed, and the Senator 
was rapidly getting the better of Voorhees, when 
Hannegan came to the latter's assistance with a hea\'>' 
milk pitcher, snatched from the table, which he broke 
on Chandler's head. The contents of the pitcher 
splashed over the whole company. Chandler was 
stinined by the blow, and had not fully recovered him- 
self when Hannegan dealt him a second blow with a 
chair. At this juncture parties present interfered, 
and the belligerents were separated. Chandler's head 
was slightly cut by the pitcher, and his shoulder and 
arm considerably bruised by the chair. Though not 
able to close his hand, he has been out to-day attending 
to his usual duties." Mr. Chandler as well as Mr. 
Sumner had to suffer for expressing their opinions too 
freely. 

On June 28, 1864, ]\Ir. Chandler made some char- 
acteristic remarks^^ on an amendment to Senate bill 
No. 232 in regard to intercourse with disloyal States: 
"I thought that death was a light penalty for licensed 
Officers of the Government who furnished the rebels 

with military supplies I do not think three years 

is any punishment for a man guilty of such a crime. 
I certainly would impose the death penalty and take 
from the President in such a case the pardoning power, 
if that were possible." 

The Congressional plan of reconstruction as em- 
bodied in the Wade-Davis bill and adopted by Con- 
gress during the closing hours of the first session of 
the 38th Congress, was very near to Mr. Chandler's 
heart. His anxiety over the disposition of the bill X 
19. Cong. Globe, 1st Sess. 38th Cong., p. 3324. 



78 ZACHARIAH CHANDLER 

by President Lincoln is well told in Nicolay and 
Hay's Lincoln — ^" 

*' Congress was to adjourn at noon on the Fourth 
-of July; the President was in his room at the Capitol 
signing bills, which were laid before him as they were 
brought from the two Houses. When this important 
bill (Wade-Davis) was placed before him, he laid it 
aside and went on with the other work of the moment. 
Several prominent members entered in a state of in- 
tense anxiety over the fate of the bill. Mr. Sumner 
and Mr. Boutwell, while their nervousness was evident, 
refrained from any comment. Zachariah Chandler, 
who was unabashed in any mortal presence, roundly 
asked the President if he intended to sign the bill. 
The President replied :^^ 'This bill has been placed 
before me a few moments before Congress adjourns. 
It is a matter of too much importance to be swallowed 
in that way.' Tf it is vetoed,' cried Mr. Chandler, 
■'.it will damage us fearfully in the Northwest. The 
important point is that one prohibiting slavery in the 
reconstructed States.' Mr. Lincoln said, 'That is the 
point on which I doubt the authority of Congress to 
act.' Tt is not more than you have done yourself,' 
said the Senator. The President answered, T con- 
ceive that I may in an emergency do things on military 
grounds which cannot be done constitutionally by 
Congress.' Mr. Chandler, expressing his deep chagrin 

went out and the President said 'this bill 

and the position of these gentlemen seem to me, in 
asserting that the insurrectionary States are no longer 

20. N. and II., Lincoln, IX, 120-121. 

21. Marginal note in N. and H. reads "J. H. Diary." 




ZACHARIAH CHANDLEK 

From a daguerreotype in the possession of Mrs. Eugene Hale, Ells- 
worth, Maine. 



IN U. S. SENATE 1863-64 79 

in the Union, to make the fatal admission that the 
States, whenever they please, may of their own motion 
dissolve their connection with the Union.' 

The malcontents in the Republican party who met 
in convention at Cleveland, May 31, 1864, and nomi- 
nated John C. Fremont for President, received no 
support from Mr. Chandler. The Cleveland con- 
vention- was founded upon issues both conservative 
and radical. It was conservative in its denunciation 
of the violations of the rights of free speech, free 
press and habeas corpus in districts where martial law 
had not been proclaimed. With complaints of such 
violations Mr. Chandler had little sympathy. He 
was radical on every measure for putting down the 
rebellion, and infringements upon the constitutional 
rights of individuals, if necessary to this end, were 
in his opinion not only justifiable but praiseworthy. 
The confiscation plank in the Cleveland platform was 
radical, but Fremont repudiated it in his letter of 
acceptance. The plank for a constitutional amend- 
ment to prohibit the re-estabhshment of slavery and 
"to secure the equality of all men before the law" 
was no more radical than a similar plank in the Balti- 
more platform, except for the last clause. The Cleve- 
land men denounced the Administration for "man- 
aging the war for personal ends." Mr. Chandler was 
a practical poUtician and a firm beUever in such a dis- 
tribution of the patronage as would maintain the Re- 
pubUcan party in power. Furthermore, Mr. Chandler 
was thoroughly identified with the past conduct of 

"^2^ For documents pertaining to this convention see Apple- 
ton's Annual Encyclopaedia, 1864, p. 786. 



80 ZACHARIAH CHANDLER 

the war — a criticism upon it was a reflection upon him 
as well as upon Mr. Lincoln. But above all else, Mr. 
Chandler was one of the "ins," not the "outs." He 
was receiving a generous share of the federal patronage 
from Mr. Lincoln, and thereby strengthening his own 
power in Michigan. For him to have cast aside these 
advantages and thrown in his lot with a coterie of 
discontented men who had nothing to lose and ever}^- 
thing to gain would have been Quixotic and un\\ise 
and entirely foreign to every political policy and 
sentiment upon which Mr. Chandler was ever known 
to act.'^ 

According to the Post and Tribune "Life,"-^ Mr. 
Chandler induced Fremont to withdraw from the 
contest and secured the support of Wade and Davis 

23. H. M. Dilla, Politics of Michigan, 1865-1878, p. 35, speaking 

of Chandler's attitude towards the Cleveland Convention, 
says: "It would be expected from temperament and 
past convictions that Chandler would have thrown his 
influence with the opponent of Lincoln, in the interest 
of a more vigorous prosecution of the war. This was not 
the case, however, for he labored steadfastly^ in behalf of 
Lincoln and he was among those who effected the with- 
drawal of Fremont. The motive for this action is not 
evident." 
I cannot agree with Miss Dilla on this point. Chandler's 
attitude seems to me to have been the natural and in- 
deed the only possible position for him to take under the 
circumstances. So far as I have been able to discover, 
the Cleveland Convention received little support from 
Michigan Republicans. The Detroit Advertiser and 
Tribune opposed it openly and the Free Press gives no 
information tending to show a strong movement in its 
favor in Michigan. The Free Press, being Democratic, 
would naturally show up the weakness of the Michigan 
Republicans if they were actually divided by the Cle\'e- 
land Convention. 

24. Chapter XV. 



IN U. S. SENATE 1863-64 81 

for Mr. Lincoln. There is every reason to believe 
that Mr. Chandler's influence was potent in healing 
the breach in the Republican ranks. 

During the campaign Mr. Chandler spoke in Indiana, 
Connecticut, New Jersey and New York and made an 
extended speaking tour in Michigan. In his own 
State he found himself in thorough rapport with the 
people. Particularly in the country districts men, 
women and children came five, ten and even twenty 
miles to hear him, and it was no unusual thing, par- 
ticularly in the new counties in the northwestern part 
of the State, for stores to close, sawmills to shut down, 
farm labor to be suspended and almost the whole 
population to turn out to the Republican meetings. -'^ 

The result of the election was a Republican victory 
in Michigan. Lincoln received^^ 79,149 votes ex- 
lucsive of a ''soldiers vote" of 9,402; McClellan re- 
ceived 68,513 exclusive of a "soldiers vote" of 2,959. 

25. Advertiser and Tribune, Oct. 29, 1864. 

26. Michigan Manual. 

11 



^'M^ 



CHAPTER X 

The Years 1865-66 

</ ivi'R- Chandler's hatred of Great Britain fell little 
^ iVi g^Qj^ of a mild form of mania on the subject. 
For years, upon the stump and in the Senate, he never 
failed to "twist the lion's tail," upon every possible 
occasion. He attacked Great Britain for issuing the 
Neutrality Proclamation, for lax enforcement of her 
neutrality laws in the m.atter of Confederate cruisers, 
and for harboring rebels in Canada and allowing raids 
across the border into the territory of the Umted 

States. 

There was in fact considerable uneasiness in Detroit 
during the war over the possibility of an attack upon 
the city bv the Confederates and their sympathizers 
living just across the river in Windsor, Canada, and no 
doubt Mr. Chandler shared in the feeUng. Btit Mr. 
Chandler was bv nature an intense partisan. In de- 
fending Michigan he would revile New England and 
New York; in defending the North he would castigate 
the South; as a loyal Repubhcan he would flay Copper- 
heads and as an American he took delight m berating 
Great' Britain. As a stump speaker Mr. Chandler 
relied in large measure upon vituperation and a certain 
rou-h coarse humor. He was a powerful man physi- 
cally as tall as Lincoln and in his later years con- 
siderkbly heavier. He possessed tremendous nervous 
energy and when he spoke to a political audience he 



THE YEARS 1865-66 S3 

used every ounce of it. In denouncing the sins of 
Great Britain he was at his best, and the flood of 
vituperation and abuse that he poured forth was 
laughed at and highly enjoyed by the majority of his 
constituents. We demand rather more refinement 
m our political speeches to-day, but fifty years ago 
Zachariah Chandler was one of the most' effective -^ 
stump speakers in the Northwest. / 

It is possible that Mr. Chandler had a political 
motive: he may have hoped to divert attention from 
party dissensions at home by attacking a foreign 
power and again giving the Republican partv an op- 
portunity to call itself the party of patriots and stig- 
matize its opponents as traitors to their country. 
But after all. it seems to have been with him a sort of 
mania. 

As early as June 16, 1864, in a speech in the Senate 
Mr. Chandler declared i^ ''If I had my way, I would 
raise a wall of fire between this nation and Great 

^^^^i^ She has sent out cruisers, English ships, 

built of English tim.ber, manned with Englishmen,' 
provisioned with English provisions, sailing under 
British colors, to prey upon our commerce, until she 
has virtually driven it from the face of the earth. Sir, 
I am prepared to-day to say to Great Britain, 'Pay that 
bill, principal and interest, or there shall be no com- 
merical intercourse between you and us until that bill 
is paid,' and if she did not pay the bill, and England 
got into war with any power on earth, I do not care if 
It was the King of Dahomey, I would let loose a fleet 
of fast sailin g steamers that should make her drink the 
1. Globe, 1st Sess. 38th Cong., p. 3008. 



84 ZACHARIAH CHANDLER 

cup to the dregs I would let private individuals 

take out letters of marque, and I would let them 
drive the English flag from the seas as she has driven 

ours." , 

The report of the release of the St. Albans raiders 
by the Canadian authorities, for want of jurisdiction, 
was published in the newspaper, December 14, 1864. 
Mr Chandler that same morning introduced two 
resolutions- in the Senate which for undiplomatic 
language could hardly be exceeded. The first one 

read: . , _ 

'< Whereas the people of the British Provmces 

seem disposed to protect these thieves, robbers, in- 
cendiaries, pirates and murderers, not only in then- 
individual capacity but by the quibbles of the law: 
Therefore, Resolved, That the Committee on Military 
Affairs be directed to inquire into the expediency of 
immediately enlisting an Army Corps to watch and 
defend our territory bordering on the lakes." 

Objection being made, Mr. Chandler offered a sec- 
ond resolution, which after a long preamble instructed 
the Secretary of State to compute the damages due 
from Great Britain for allowing the Confederate 
cruisers to escape, and to "demand" from the British 
Government payment in full with interest at 6%. 

Upon the subject of retahation upon rebel prisoners 
for cruelties suffered by Union soldiers in Southern 
prisons, Mr. Chandler was radical. His colleague m 
the Senate, J. M. Howard, introduced a bill upon the 
subject and on January 30, 1865, Mr. Chandler spoke 
in favor of it— ^ 

" 2. Cong~Glohe, 2nd Scss. 38lh Con-., p. ]^-^\ 
3. Cong. Globe, 2nd Sess. 38th Cong., p. 496-49/ . 



THE YEARS 1865-66 85 

"I shall vote for this measure of retaUation, and 
for any measure of retaliation that promises to be 
effective. Ay, Sir, I will carry it to the point of 

starvation I will carry it to the stake and I will 

carry it to any extent that is necessary to preserve the 
lives of those helpless and suffering prisoners now 
dying by thousands in the hands of these accursed, 
hellish rebels." 

No doubt the testimony before the Committee on 
the Conduct of the War on the subject of the treat- 
ment accorded Union soldiers in Southern prisons and 
elsewhere had much to do in arousing an intense de- 
sire for retaUation in Chandler and Wade. Upon this 
point Chandler said:^ "The Committee on the Con- 
duct of the War has been laboring for years to induce 
the Administration to adopt the system of retaUation; 
but the labor has been fruitless. A year ago, when 
that committee was directed to investigate the con- 
dition of the returned prisoners then arriving at 
Annapolis, we found that language failed to convey 
to the mind a correct idea of the condition of these 
men, and we were compelled, in order to give even 
an approximate idea of the treatment our prisoners 
had received, to have photographs^ of those skeletons 
before the people of the United States, that they might 
reaUze the barbarities that had been perpetrated upon 
them. We then hoped and believed that the Ad- 
ministration would adopt, and adopt immediately, a 

4. Globe, 2nd Sess. 38th Cong., p. 496. 

5. For these pictures see Report of Committee on the Con- 

duct of the War, House Report, No. 67, 1st Sess. 38th 
Cong-. 



86 ZACHARIAH CHANDLER 

system of retaliation that would prove efficacious. 
In that hope we were disappointed." 

Sumner, Wilson, Trumbull and other radicals op- 
posed Mr. Howard's bill. Mr. Chandler pronounced 
Mr. Sumner's substitute*^ "a subHmated specimen of 
humanitarianism. ' '^ 

In February the joint resolution to recognize the 
State of Louisiana came up in the Senate.^ The 
radicals were divided on the measure but Sumner, 
Wade and Chandler were able by dilatory motions to 
defeat its passage. 

After the assassination of President Lincoln, some 
of the members of the Committee on the Conduct 
of the War called upon President Johnson who assured 
them that in his opinion treason was a crime that 
must be made odious, traitors must be punished and 
impoverished, and loyal men must be remunerated 
from the pockets of those who had brought on the re- 
belHon.^ Such sentiments delighted Mr. Chandler 
1/ and his associates. Andrew Johnson had served with 
Mr. Chandler on the Committee on the Conduct of 
the War, and they had long been political and personal 

6. Sumner's amendment to the joint resolution advising;- 

retaliation for the cruel treatment of prisoners by the 
insurgents would strike out all after the resolving clause 

of the resolution and insert the following : " 

That any attempted imitation of rebel barbarism in the 
treatment of jirisoners. . . .being. . . .impracticable, use- 
less, immoral and degrading, it must be rejected as a 
measure of retaliation. ..." 

Globe, 2nd Sess. 38th Cong., p. 381. 

7. Cong. Globe, 2nd Sess. 38th Cong., p. 496-497. 

8. Upon this,- see Nicolay and Hay, Lincoln, IX, 454. 

9. Speech in Detroit, Nov. 3, 1866. Scxi Detroit Post, Nov. 

5, 1866. 



THE YEARS 1865-66 87 

friends. Mr. Chandler loved a friend and hated an 
enemy with singular blindness to the faults of the one 
and the merits of the other. He was slow to turn 
against his former friend Andrew Johnson. All through 
the Session of 1865-66 Mr. Chandler, although he 
voted with the radicals, maintained silence upon the 
important measures of reconstruction which were de- 
bated in the Senate. As early as May 2, 1865, the X 
Free Press commented upon the silence of Sumner, 
Wade and Chandler. In January, 1866,^° the same 
paper announced that ''the secret of his [Chandler's] 
remaining so quiet in the Senate thus far was that 
he had abandoned the radical faction and was a warm 
Johnson man." Whether from political or personal 
considerations, Mr. Chandler does not seem to have 
been a leader of the radical anti -Johnson men, until 
the winter of 1866-67. 

January 15, 1866, he made a violent speech^^ against 
Great Britain and offered a resolution requesting the 
President to withdraw our Minister from the Court 
of St. James and to make national proclamation of 
non-intercourse on account of the refusal of that 
Government to make reparation for damages inflicted 
upon our commerce. This resolution met with con- 
siderable ridicule from the newspapers. The Chicago 
Tribune headed an editorial upon it, "Senator Chand- 
ler's Joke." Mr. Chandler in reply ^'- wrote a letter 
to the editors which closed : 



10. Free Press, Jan. 6, 1866. 

11. Cong. Globe, 1st Sess. 39th Cong., pp. 226-227. 

12. For this whole matter see New York Herald Feb. 3, 1866. 

(Townsend Library, LXIV, 318). 



88 ZACHARIAH CHANDLER 

"In conclusion, Messrs. Editors, I would say that 
if this be a 'joke,' I am of the opinion that Great 
Britain will find it a serious one. If she does not pay 
the bills, I shall push the matter this year, next year 
and the year following and if I die before these bills 
are paid in full, satisfactorily adjusted or retaliated 
for, I shall die pressing these claims, and shall leave 
as a legacy to my descendants and successors the 
charge to prosecute until the claims are paid." 

Sumner's resolution of protest against the practice 
of pardoning criminals abroad on conditions that they 
emigrate to the United States called forth from Chand- 
ler some characteristic remarks :^'^ 

"If the Senator from Massachusetts would put 
anything that was effective into his resolution I 
should not object to it; as, for instance, if he w^ould 
declare that a repetition of these acts would be a just 
cause of war, or that we would retaliate, or something 

more than a simple protest by Congress That 

will do for a Secretary of State ; it will do for one of the 
servants of this Government; but it is beneath the 
dignity of this body to pass such a resolution." 

Much of Chandler's work in the Senate was con- 
nected with the Committee on Commerce. He was 
for years the Chairman of that important Committee, 
and as a Western man his influence was always thrown 
in favor of a broad interpretation of the interstate 
commerce clause of the Constitution. On March 20, 
1866, he spoke^* at length in favor of a bill to grant a 
monopoly to induce a company to lay an Atlantic 

13. Mar. 19, 1866. Globe, 1st Sess. 39th Cong., p. 1493. 

14. Cong. Globe, 1st Sess. 39th Cong., p. 1518. 



THE YEARS 1865-66 89 

cable between the United States and the West Indies. 
To an objection that Congress had no constitutional 
power to grant such a monopoly, Mr. Chandler re- 
pHed: "This constitutional objection seems to me 
very puerile. The Constitution confers on Congress 
the power to regulate commerce with foreign nations, 
and among the several States and with the Indian 
tribes. ^^ I should like to know how we can better 
exercise the power to regulate commerce than by 
regulating our telegraphic lines with foreign nations." 
In still another instance, during the year 1866, Mr. 
Chandler championed a liberal interpretation of the 
power of Congress under the interstate commerce 
clause of the Constitution. A bill was before the 
Senate to build a ship-canal around the falls of Niagara. 
A majority of the Committee on Commerce were 
opposed to asserting the right of the United States to 
act without permission from the State of New York. 
Michigan and the Northwest wanted the Niagara 
canal built to give an outlet for their commerce. New 
York opposed it because it would take traffic from the 
Erie Canal. Mr. Chandler said: "I believe the 
Government possesses the power to regulate commerce 
as it sees fit between States; and I do not believe that 
the State of New Jersey or the State of New York or 
any other State can raise an obstacle that shall inter- 
fere with the commercial relations between the other 
States of this Union." 

The liberality of the appropriations for Michigan, 
which uniformly appeared in the River and Harbor 
bill as it was reported from the Commerce Committee, 
15. Globe, 1st Sess. 39th Cong., p. 3456. 



90 ZACHARIAH CHANDLER 

met with a good deal of comment from Mr. Chandler's 
colleagues in the Senate. His efforts to obtain ap- 
propriations for the St. Clair Flats were so persistent 
and earnest that ''Senator Chandler's St. Clair Flats" 
came to be regaided as a standing joke and were often 
referred to in debate to raise a laugh at the Senator's 
expense. 

At one time,^*^ during the debate on the Sundry 
Civil Appropriation bill, it was proposed to deprive 
Michigan of two lights, one on Isle Royal and another 
in Saginaw Bay. Mr. Chandler's speech in opposition 
to this is characteristic of his championship of the 
commercial interests of Michigan — 

"I suppose the Senator is aware (if he is not, I will 
inform him) of the fact that Lake Superior is to-day 
more rich in minerals, except gold, than California. 
We have more silver than California, and I think more 
than California and Nevada put together. We have 
not dug it all out (laughter) but we are taking out 
silver there that yields fotir thousand to the ton, and 
you consider yourselves very rich when your ore 
yields $400. We have the richest mines on earth, 
and they are very near to this light, and it is needed 
for all the commerce — and it is very great — passing 
to and fro — and it is increasing every day." 

Mr. Stewart: "I suppose you want a light to find 
the silver." 

Mr. Chandler: "The light that you now propose 
to strike out is the only light on Saginaw bay .... The 
commerce of Saginaw bay is perfectly enormous, in- 
cluding over 400,000,000 feet of lumber alone and some 
16. Feb. 28, 1873. Globe, 3rd Sess. 42nd Cong., P- 1955. 



THE YEARS 1S65-66 91 

two or three million barrels of salt, besides an enor- 
mous amount of other articles, and this is the only 
light you have to the other entrance to the bay." 

The Senate succumbed and refused to accept the 
amendment striking out the lights. 

Mr. Chandler took some part in the debates on the 
Tax bill; but as before remarked, though he voted 
with the radicals, he kept strangely quiet upon recon- ' 
struction issues. Jacob M. Howard, however, was 
outspoken in his hostility to President Johnson. 

The most prominent issue in the campaign of 1866 '-^ 
in Michigan was that of reconstruction. The Demo- 
crats and Conserv^ative Republicans endorsed Presi- 
dent Johnson's policy of immediately admitting into 
Congress the Representatives and Senators from 
Southern States on the theory that since the Con- 
stitution did not recognize the right of secession the 
Union was still intact and every State within it had a 
constitutional right to be represented in Congress. K 
The Republicans, entirely under the control of the 
Radicals, approved Congressional reconstruction and 
declared that the Southern States should be entitled 
to representation in Congress only after they had 
accepted the Fourteenth Amendment, the most ob- 
jectionable section of which was that the Southern 
States should either grant suffrage to the Negro or 
suffer a reduction in the niunber of their Representa- 
tives proportional to the number of Negroes ex- 
cluded. 

The campaign was a strenuous one. The Con- 
servative Republicans, calling themselves National 
Unionists, held a mass convention at Detroit on 



92 ZACHARIAH CHANDLER 

August 9, drew up resolutions endorsing Johnson's 
reconstruction policy and elected delegates to the 
national convention of the Conservative Republicans 
to be held at Philadelphia on August 14. Just a few 
days before the Philadelphia Convention the Demo- 
cratic State Central Committee received notice from 
the National Unionists that a double set of delegates 
would be welcome at Philadelphia. There being no 
time to call a Democratic Convention, the Democratic 
State Central Committee took the responsibility of 
appointing Democrats to attend the Philadelphia Con- 
vention. The opposition to the Republicans began to 
look formidable. Among the National Union delegates 
were such prominent men as James F. Joy and Henry 
Barnes, the Detroit editor. The leading man among 
the Democratic delegates was Charles E. Stuart, 
former United States Senator from Michigan. The 
National Unionists and the Democrats differed with 
each other upon many questions, including finance, 
taxation, and protective tariff, but they were a unit 
upon the reconstruction issue. In order to win the 
election they agreed to act together. The Democrats 
endorsed^^ the State ticket nominated by the Michigan 
National Unionists and both forces now presented a 
solid front to the Republicans. 

•/ Mr. Chandler made a vigorous campaign in behalf 
of the Republicans and came out flat-footed in op- 

y. position to the President. In regard to the question 
whether the Southern States were in or out of the 
Union, he said:^^ 

17. Detroit Free Press, Sept. 6, 1866. 

18. Detroit Post, Nov. 5, 1866. 




JOHN ORR 

Brother of Margaret (Orr) Chandler. From a miniature in the posses- 
sion of Mrs. Eugene Hale, of Ellsworth, Maine. 



THE YEARS 1865-66 



"The question is rather a mythical one at best 
They occupied a double relation to the Government- 
first, they were rebels, and as such were liable to be 

hung for treason. Afterwards the whole people 

of the South became aHen enemies of the Government 
... .we conquered them finally and then held them by 
and under the laws of war. Those laws have changed 
from age to age. . . .but have ever, even as late as 
July, 1866, permitted the conquerors to levy all the 
expenses of the war upon the conquered." 

He declaredly that if the Democrats gained the 
election the holders of rebel script would so ''debauch" 
the Democratic Congress that the people would have 
the rebel debt to pay. He castigated the ''Bread and 
Butter "2^ men of Michigan without mercy, and called 
Seward, who was a leading member of the National 
Umomsts, morally, physically and intellectually an 
imbecile and a coward.^^ He approved the Four-'- 
teenth Amendment but declared that it did not -o far 
enough, viz., to extend suffrage and equality to the 
Negro.^^ He declared that President Johnson and the 
Democrats were trying to "deUver the administration 
of the Government into the hands of traitors reeking 
with the blood of freemen. "23 For his part^^ he would 
rather "trust the liberty of his country in the hands 
of the loyal black whose gun was aimed at the enemies 

19. Detroit Free Press, Oct. 20, 1866 

20. The^epithet applied to the National Unionists by the Re- 

21. Free Press, Oct. 20, 1866. 

"■ ^^r866 ""^ ^^"'^''-' ^^t- ^^' 1866. Free Press, Oct. 20, 

23. Ibid. 

24. Speech at Detroit, Nov. 3, Post, Nov. 5, 1866. 



94 ZACHARIAH CHANDLER 

of his country than in the hands of a grayback traitor 
whose gun was pointed at his country." 

If an item in the Free Press''" is to be beheved, Mr. 
Chandler depended upon something besides oratory 
to carr}^ the State; it says: "A letter from Jackson 
county informs us of the receipt of circulars from the 
Hon. Z. Chandler, asking for the names of Democrats 
who are very poor." 

Mr. Chandler stumped the State with his old-time 
vigor, and the result of the election was that a heavy 
Republican majority sanctioned the position of the 
radicals. 



25. Free Press, Oct. 9, 1866. 



i 



CHAPTER XI 

Foreign Affairs and Reconstruction 

TT is a law of politics that men who enter public 
life full of patriotism and enthusiasm for some 
great moral issue, once that object is attained, are 
not likely to see that new issues have arisen and that 
new problems have come to demand solution. They 
go on along the old lines. It was so with Zachariah 
Chandler. Sent to the Senate to fight slaveholders, 
maintain freedom in the Territories and preserv^e the 
Union, the Northwest found in him. an able champion. 
His very narrowness of vision, bitter partisan spirit 
and indomitable courage and energy had prevented 
compromise and brought the South to her knees. 
But these very qualities so potent for good during the 
war were productive of evil after the war. A new issue 
was before the nation: How should the Union be re- 
constructed? Statesmen, men of wisdom and broad 
vision were needed to answer this question. Mr. 
Chandler had known the bitterness of the conflict 
too well, he had fought the Copperheads and rebels 
too long to be able to take a statesmanlike position 
upon the issues of reconstruction. The men like 
Chandler who because of their fierce readiness to fight 
had refused compromise and had called forth the 
energy of the North to crush the South were now in- 
capable temperamentally of taking an attitude of 
conciliation which the situation seems to have re- 



x^ 



96 ZACHARIAH CHANDLER 

quired. So Chandler joined the Radicals and the 
Radicals were essentially the "stand-patters" who 
never forgot that Southerners had been rebels, Demo- 
crats and Copperheads. The Radicals were intent 
on maintaining the Republican party in power though 
the price were Negro suffrage and frequent violation 
of rights vested by the Constitution. The Con- 
servatives were the liberals who rose above a desire 
for vengeance and sought only to heal the wounds left 
by the conflict. 

But in reconstruction as in rebellion, Mr. Chandler 
was still representative of the spirit of the Northwest. 
The crippled veterans in the streets, the vacant places 
in the family circles, cried aloud for vengeance. That 
ruthless spirit which felled the forests of Michigan 
and conquered the wilderness demanded that the last 
root and branch of the rebellion be blotted out and 
found in Mr. Chandler an able champion of its desires. 
There is another phase of Mr. Chandler's career 
that deserves special mention, and that is his attitude 
toward foreign affairs. His blustering speeches in the 
Senate and on the strmnp were distinctly ''jingoistic." 
He was constantly offering resolutions in the Senate 
couched in undiplomatic and even threatening lan- 
guage, upon various matters connected with our foreign 
policy. It would be difficult to conceive of a man 
more unfitted by nature and by training to cope with 
the affairs of the State Department, and yet Mr. 
Chandler probably made more speeches upon matters 
connected with our foreign policy than upon any other 
)C single topic. No doubt the Northwest favored ex- 
pansion, and probably many of Mr. Chandler's con- 



k 



FOREIGN AFFAIRS AND RECONSTRUCTION 97 

stituents believed as he did that the United States was 
the greatest nation in the world and could whip the 
combined armies of Europe; but that his jingoistic 
attitude was representative of the feelings of his con- 
stituents is hardly true. His popularity in Michigan 
was due to the fact that he was "sound on the main 
question," and not due to his belHgerent attitude on 
foreign affairs; and yet even in foreign affairs Mr. 
Chandler was but an exaggerated type of the Western 
diplomatist. It is characteristic of American diplo- 
macy to deal frankly, boldly, even bluntly with foreign 
nations, and American diplomacy has its root in the 
West, where men are wont to treat their daily diffi- 
culties in very summary fashion.^ 

As an illustration of Mr. Chandler's attitude on 
reconstruction we will now consider some of his re- 
marks in the Senate and elsewhere during 1867 and 
1868. On December 4, 1866, he spoke- in favor of a 
bill to withdraw from the President the power to 
pardon rebels. February 11, 1867, he declared^ that 
if Andrew Johnson had violated the law in appointing 
provisional governors for the States lately in rebellion, 
he should be impeached. A few days later he made 
a violent attack^ tipon Secretary McCulloch for ap- 
pointing Assistant Assessors of Internal Revenue in 
the Southern States who were unable to take the oath. 
In the course of this speech he declared that Secretary 

1. See Cornelius O'Dowd (Charles Lever) on "American 

Diplomacy," Blackwood's Magazine, December, 1868, 
(Vol. 104). 

2. Globe, 2nd Sess. 39th Cong., p. 8-9. 

3. Globe, 2nd Sess. 39th Cong., p. 1135-6. 

4. Feb. 27, 1867. Globe, 2nd Sess. 39th Cong., p. 1884. 

13 



98 ZACHARIAH CHANDLER 

McCulloch was a pauper and a criminal and that he 
was ready to say so elsewhere when the protection of 
privilege would be lacking. He was active in op- 
posing adjournment during 1867, believing that it 
was unsafe to adjourn long enough for the President 
to get control of reconstruction. On September 25, 

1867, William Thorpe wrote-^ to Andrew Johnson 
from Detroit: ''The only advocate of impeachment 
about here is Senator Z. Chandler, who may be seen 
at all hours of the day running after men in the streets 
and exhorting them in the most fervent manner." 
In a speech at Ashtabula, Ohio,*^ on October 1, Mr. 
Chandler said that although he voted for the Four- 
teenth Amendment he believed at the time that it 
was a base surrender of the loyal Union men of the 
South — "Rebels must take back seats and of course 
loyal men must govern this country. I care not 
whether they be black or white." On February 21, 

1868, a resolution was offered in the Senate simply 
expressing disapproval of the action of the President 
in removing Secretary Stanton. Mr. Chandler moved^ 
to add the words "as a violation of the rights of the 
Senate and unauthorized by law." The Senate re- 
fused to agree. 

^ Mr. Chandler of course voted "guilty" on the im- 

K peachment of Andrew Johnson. The story is told^ 

that as the impeachment trial drew to a close, Mr. 

Chandler entered the Senate chamber one morning, 

when a friend eagerly asked, "Do tell me, Mr. Chand- 

5. MS letter, Johnson Papers, Library of Congress. 

6. McPhcrson's Scrap Book, Campaign of 1867, II, 134-136. 

7. Globe, 2nd Sess. 40th Cong., p. 4509. 

8. Free Press, May 24, 1868. 



FOREIGN AFFAIRS AND RECONSTRUCTION 99 

ler, how is it going to-day?" ''Go and ask that 
d — d scoundrel in the corner; it all depends on him," 
roared the Senator, looking at Ross of Kansas, of 
whose defection he had just heard. 

In a similar way we may note the evidences of Mr. 
Chandler's jingoistic attitude on foreign affairs. De- 
cember 3, 1866, he offered a resolution in the Senate 
in regard to the French troops in Mexico inquiring 
whether "the French Emperor has offered any ex- 
planation or apology for his course."^ Mr. Sumner 
having pointed out the undiplomatic character of the 
language, the Senate refused to consider the resolution. 
On March 25, 1867, Mr. Chandler spoke at lengthi*^ 
on a bill reported from the Committee on Commerce 
declaring it legal for citizens of the United States to 
sell ships to friendly belligerents. This bill of course 
was directed at Great Britain. "Pass this Bill, Sir," 
cried Mr. Chandler, "and I will guarantee you that 
Great Britain will be begging for permission to pay 
the Alabama claims before three months." 

Speaking at a banquet in St. Louis, Missouri, in 
June, in regard to the Alabama claims, Mr. Chandler 
said:^^ 

"I am not willing to arbitrate with anybody, Mr. 
President, the bill must be paid with interest from its 
date and there is no discount upon it. And, Sir, I am 
disposed to be very liberal with Great Britain. She 
is a very old power and she is a very feeble power now. 
She has cea sed to command the respect of the nations 

9. Globe, 2nd Sess. 39th Cong., p. 7-8. 

10. Globe, 1st Sess. 40th Cong., p. 328-9. 

1 1 . Detroit Post, June 2 1 , 1867 . 



100 ZACHARIAH CHANDLER 

of the earth I am willing to take collateral 

securities. Great Britain owns a little land up North 
of us and I, Sir, am wilHng to consider this a first 
mortgage on the little debt that Great Britain owes. 
I do not want it arbitrated. I want to let it rest 
until the time comes to foreclose that mortgage.... 
This North American continent belongs to us and ours 
it must be." 

In July^- Mr. Chandler made a speech in the Senate 
on the Mexican situation. After glorying over the 
shooting of Maximilian he exclaimed: "We want 
the Austrians, the French and the English to under- 
stand that if they commence a war against Mexico 
now they have got to fight the United States of North 
America. Sir, pass a single resolution of sympathy 
and aid and no nation will interfere with Mexico. . . . 
All the nations of Europe combined would not under- 
take to fight the United States to-day on this side of 
the Atlantic." 

On November 29 Mr. Chandler introduced^^ a joint 
resolution declarative of the neutrality of the United 
States between Great Britain and Abysinia. The 
language used was copied verbatim from the pro- 
clamation of neutrality issued by Great Britain May 
14, 1861, except that the ''United States" and "Con- 
federate States" were changed to "Great Britain" 
and "Abyssinia."^'* 

On December 9 Mr. Chandler made a speech^'^ in 
support of his resolution, reviewed the grievances of 

12. July 3, 1867, Globe, 1st Sess. 40th Cong., p. 507. 

13. Globe, 1st Sess. 40th Cong., p. 810. 

14. Globe, 2nd Sess. 40th Cong., p. 83-84. 



FOREIGN AFFAIRS AND RECONSTRUCTION 101 

the United States against Great Britain, estimated 
the damages due to the United States at two bilHon 
dollars, and declared that when the United States 
had shut Great Britain from the continent of North 
America and the adjacent islands, the debt would be 
paid and the national honor satisfied. 



CHAPTER XII 

Mr. Chandler's Third Election to the United 
States Senate 



0' 



|N August 27, 1868, Mr. Chandler wrote^ to 

Jacob M. Howard: 
"The Copperheads are at work in earnest and have 
some hopes of carrying two or three Congressional 
Districts. We are pressed for speakers & I think you 
should come home at the earliest possible moment. 
Suppose you give up Minn, until Nov. At any rate, 
hurry home as soon as possible. I commence regularly 
next week." 

\X In his speeches during the campaign of 1868, Mr. 
Chandler approved Congressional Reconstruction, 
abused Copperheads and rebels, and denounced the 

>y payment of the war debt in greenbacks. Some of his 
methods of winning votes were decidedly undignified. 
At Battle Creek, on August 24, Mr. Chandler at the 
close of his speech said •} ' ' Now I want to ask Gover- 
nor Oglesby (111.) one question. Come up here. 
(The Governor advanced to the front of the stand). 
I want to ask you, can we, with so many splendid 
looking women be defeated?" (Laughter and ap- 
plause). Governor Oglesby: 'T will do the Hon- 
orable Senator the justice to say that I have not 
anywhere looked upon a more intelligent audience, 

1. MvS letter, Howard Papers. 

2. Free Press, August 26, 1868. 



THIRD ELECTION TO U. S- SENATE 103 

with more handsome ladies present in it, than I have 
to-day." 

At Mt. Clemens a few days later the following report 
is made by an eye-witness:^ *'He spoke for about 
two hours and wound up his great speech by turning 
roimd to his right and addressing the ladies (of whom 
the meeting was composed by half) 'and if any of you 
ladies,' he said, 'are married to a Copperhead husband, 
let him sleep alone.' " This was going pretty far 
even for those days, and met with rebuke from Demo- 
cratic newspapers; but Mr. Chandler was a product 
of his time, and his speeches and jokes did not offend 
his audiences as similar ones would to-day. 

The reelection of Mr. Chandler was not a prominent 
issue in the campaign,- but immediately after the 
Republican victory in November the Senatorial ques- 
tion began to be widely disctissed. The Detroit Post 
and the majority of the RepubHcan State press sup- 
ported Mr. Chandler.^ The Advertiser and Tribune, 
RepubHcan, opposed him.. The relations between \/^^ 
Mr. Chandler and some of the persons behind the 
Advertiser and Trihi'me had been unfriendly for some 
time. As a result, Mr. Chandler started the Post, the '^'' 
first number of which appeared in March, 1866. The 
Post was distinctly a Chandler paper and the organ 
of the Chandler "Ring," and with its estabHshment 

3. "Argus" in Free Press, Sept. 10, 1868. 

4. Free Press, Aug. 22, 1868 said: "To secure his reelection 

to the United States Senate, our Zachariah has lately 
been perambulating the interior of the State for the 
purpose of greasing the palms of the Radical Scribes. 
The happy results of these exertions are already apparent 
in the loud choiiis of praise which resounds from a cer- 
tain portion of the rural press." 



104 ZACHARIAH CHANDLER 

the Advertiser and Tribune became the organ of the 
anti- Chandler wing of the RepubKcan party. 

Mr. Chandlei's methods to insure his return to the 
Senate were much the same as before. His friends 
had been active in township and ward caucuses and 
legislative district conventions and wherever possible 
had secured the nomination of men for the Legis- 
lature who would vote for him for the United States 
Senate. In some districts, in spite of these efforts, 
anti-Chandler men had been nominated by the Re- 
publicans, and Mr. Chandler's agents, according to 
report,^ worked to defeat these men and to elect the 
Democratic candidates; because, although a Republi- 
can majoiity in the Legislature was considered certain, 
a majority of Chandler men in the Republican Sena- 
torial caucus was not so sure and yet was absolutely 
essential to ensure Mr. Chandler's reelection. Mr. 
Chandler could better afford to reduce the Republican 
majority in the Legislature than to increase it with 
anti-Chandler Republicans whose votes in the Re- 
publican Senatorial caucus would have to be offset 
by an increased number of Chandler men. 

The despotic power of the Chandler "Ring" was 
y^ the subject of mvich hostile criticism. The Advertiser 
and Tribune of December 2, 1868, said: "There are 
State officers; there is another U. S. Senator; there are 
six Congressmen for this State and leading Republicans 
in all parts of it — but what are they? The Republican 
party of Michigan is for Mr. Chandler, not for them. 
Only such nominations must be made, only such men 
elected, as will promote his personal fortunes and 
5. Advertiser and Tribune, Dec. 2, 1868. 



THIRD ELECTION TO U. S. SENATE 105 

continuance in office. Other men must be defeated 
and kept down, because if they rise, Mr. Chandler 
sinks. No man but a personal adherent of Mr. 
Chandler is to hold office in this State if he can help it. 
Everybody who has the temerity to oppose Mr. 
Chandler is denounced for political treachery and a 
combined attempt to break him down in his political 
character and standing and even personal assault and 
indignity have been resorted to to intimidate or 
silence opposition." 

"Square Truth" wrote :^ "The fact is, Mr. Chand- 
ler's strength has grown out of this very spirit of 
usurpation which for the last eight or ten years has 
characterized him in his political intercourse with the 
Republicans of this State. He it was who first as- 
sumed to frame and hang up the political slate in 
Detroit — and a Slate not for all Federal, but for all 
State and even county and township offices. With a 
royal-like assumption, he straightway essayed to 
make and unmake public men, and to write out, 
through years to come, all candidates for public pre- 
ferment. 'Whom he would he slew and whom he would 
he set up, and whom he would he put down.' By the 
grace of Zach. Cha?idler men went to Congress, and the 
Legislature. By the grace of Zach. Chandler men were 
made Governors, Lieutenant Governors and State 
Treasurers, and by the same royal courtesy they be- 
came Collectors and Assessors of the Revenue 

poor Sinbad Michigan! The Man of the Sea is upon 
your shoulders and he means to ride just so long as 
he in his good pleasure desires thus to amuse himself." 

6. Letter from "Square^Tmth," Advertiser and Tribune, 
Decemter 26. 



108 ZACHARIAH CHANDLER 

Mr. Chandler's personal habits m.et with severe 
criticism. The Puritan wing of the Republican party 
called for his retirement on the ground that his habits 
were immoral. The Northwestern Christian Advocate 
cried, ^ "No drunkard in Office." A writer from St. 
Johns declared,^ "He is given to the use of profane 
language and intoxicating drink." The Advertiser and 
Tribune observed,^ '-A public man must also greatly 
influence the young If his example is per- 
nicious and yet he is elevated and honored, it will be 
an invitation to young men to practice vice." 

No doubt Mr. Chandler was well lied about, but 
that there was at least some basis of truth in the widely 
circulated reports in regard to his use of liquor is 
evident from an editorial in the Post,^^ the Chandler 
organ, which says, "Some years ago, during the fierce 
excitement and military habits of the war, there is no 
doubt Mr. Chandler was less carefully abstemious 
than he is now." The Post, however, declared that 
he had reformed. The Nation notes^^ that Gen. Benj. 
Butler published a certificate testifying to Mr. Chand- 
ler's sobriety. Whether this was regarded as con- 
vincing testimony by the people of Michigan is per- 
haps problematical. 

But in spite of disappointed office-seekers jealous 
of Mr. Chandler's political autocracy, and the ad- 
mitted fact that his habits were hardly consistent 
with a party which claimed to be "the party of great 

7. Quoted in Advertiser and Tribune, Dec. 4. 

8. Quoted in Advertiser and Tribune, Dec. 10. 

9. Quoted in Advertiser and Tribune, Nov. 21. 

10. Post, Dec. 9. 

11. Nation, Jan. 14, 1869. 



THIRD ELECTION TO U. S. SENATE 107 

moral ideas," Mr. Chandler was still a power among 
the voters of the State: his personality appealed to 

them. "Jensen" wrote :^'' "I pass to the more 

reasonable objection of want of culture, and great 
intellectual endowment. In its technical sense, I 
do not claim that for Mr. Chandler. It is well for 
him that it is not so. It is the bane of most of our 
so-called scholars and great men that they are scarcely 
ever energetically or violently great. Occupied much 
of the time in passionless and abstract thought, they 
are illy quaHfied tor many of those practical duties 
without which even Statesmanship fails of its highest 
development. Now, it appears to me, that we are 
in one ot those crises which demand of our Senatorial 
nominee more of the qualities than of the mere powers 

of intellect For my part, I want a man in the 

U. S. Senate from Michigan (no matter what his ac- 
quirement) who can neither be bought, sold nor scared. 
Twelve years of public life entitles at least this to be 
averred of Zachariah Chandler." And the Adrian 
Times^^ declared: "We want no doubtful man to 
represent our State in the Senate and for this reason, 
if for no other, we advocate Mr. Chandler's re-election." 

The inside history^'* of this Senatorial contest is i^ 
decidedly interesting. Mr. Chandler fully realized 
that a coalition between the two most promising 

12. Post, Dec. 2. 

13. As quoted in the Post, Dec. 2. 

14. My statements are based upon the following: Ms 

letter, Allen Potter to J. M. Howard, dated Jan. 12, 
1869, in Howard MSS; Letters of A. Blair and Dr. Geo. 
W. Fish, pubhshed in Advertiser and Tribune Jan. 11, 
1871; an interview with E. W. Barber of Jackson, Mich.; 
and contemporary newspapers. 



108 ZACHARIAH CHANDLER 

candidates outside of Detroit, Austin Blair of Jackson 
and Thomas W. Ferry of Grand Haven, might prove 
disastrous to his own candidacy. He therefore laid 
plans to break up the opposition. Three friends of 
Mr. Chandler made a proposition to Austin Blair 
asking him to support Mr. Chandler in January, 1869, 
and promising in return Mr. Chandler's support of Mr. 
Blair for the Senate in January, 1871, when a suc- 
cessor to Jacob M. Howard was to be selected. It 
was the ambition of Austin Blair's life to go to Wash- 
ington as United States Senator from Michigan. This 
overture from Mr. Chandler gave him the opportunity 
\ to realize this ambition, but he rejected it. Austin 
Blair was a man who possessed many admirable 
qualities, honesty and patriotism, but he lacked 
political acumen. He could not read men and he 
surrounded himself with advisers whose wire-pulling 
abilities were as meager as his own. 
[X Having failed with Mr. Blair, Mr. Chandler turned 
to T. W. Ferry. Mr. Ferry agreed to a proposition 
the terms of which were identical with those rejected 
>C. by Mr. Blair. 

Of course the agreement between Mr. Chandler 
and Mr. Ferry was a secret. Mr. Blair knew nothing 
of it and seemingly never suspected it. ' He entered 
into an alliance with Mr. Ferry to join forces, defeat 
Mr. Chandler and elect a Senator outside of the 
Detroit "Ring." Mr. Ferry therefore was bound 
secretly to both Chandler and the opposition interests. 
Mr. Blair went to Lansing in January, 1869, ex- 
pecting to meet Mr. Ferry as agreed. Mr. Ferry 
remained at home. The delegates from Mr. Ferry's 





pr ^ .,5 

4 '^^ '^^^ 









AUSTIN BLAIK 

From the oil portrait in tlie Capitol, Lansing. 



THIRD ELECTION TO U- S- SENATE 109 

district, without notifying the Blair men, went into 
consultation. The first question submitted was, shall 
we present the name of Mr. Ferry for the Senate? 
To this every member responded, No. The second 
and only other proposition submitted to this meeting 
was for each member to express his first choice for a 
candidate. To this, one responded Blair and every 
other voted for Chandler. Mr. Ferry then had been 
true to Zach. Chandler and had left Governor Blair 
in the lurch. Governor Blair soon saw that he had 
no chance and returned to Jackson. 

There were still some 24 votes in opposition to Mr. 
Chandler. These were won over by the lobby. Of 
this lobby a writer in the Advertiser and Tribune^'" 
said: "We saw these veterans at Lansing twelve years 
ago. How few of them die! How fresh they look! 
On Tuesday evening Mr. Chandler, our poHtical 
leviathan, accompanied by a retinue that might have 
been mistaken in its immensity for the IsraeHtes who 
remembered longingly the flesh-pots of Egypt, filed 
into Capitol Avenue! It was a real army, of two 
hundred strong, and every train for the succeeding 
twenty-four hours brought additions until there was 
such a lobby as the oldest inhabitants never beheld. 
We bow in admiration to it. "Stupendous" is the 
only term that will describe it. It overflowed every- 
where. It bore down on the astounded legislators 
like a cavalry charge. All the evening — nearly all 
night — all the next day, with Briarean hands it was 
leading member after m.ember, who had previously 
been put through from eight to ten distinct courses of 

15. January 7, 1869. 



110 ZACHARIAH CHANDLER 

lobby, to the rooms of the great chief, where post- 
offices and consulates were flung about in such pro- 
fusion that a man going upstairs in the vicinity was 
likely to be hit! The industry and assurance of the 
lobby were equal to its dimensions. It was a jolly 
lobby, and had its laughing section, which exploded 
like incessant peals of artillery. Humorous as was 
the outward aspect of this veteran lobby, made up 
of the picked politicians of the State, every one of 
whom could lay a wire with artistic precision and 
trace it until it grew as fine as WoUaston's experi- 
mental gossamer, it was tremendously effective. It 
literally swallowed up the opposition." 

"C. K. B." wrote in the same paper, ^'"' *' It has con- 
sisted of two divisions — the bully raggers and the 
honey fuglers. The bully raggers have talked loud 
and long and conducted their campaign on the Chinese 
plan of frightening the enemy by a tremendous noise. 
The honey fuglers have been bland, oily and insinuating 
and they have done the quiet button-holing and the 
closeting. This lobby has achieved, however, a 
triumph beyond its most sanguine expectations and 
it therefore vanishes to-morrow in a blaze of glory." 

\/ The Republicans met in caucus on the evening of 
January 6. On the first (and only) informal ballot, 
Mr. Chandler received 78 out of 96 votes. His nomi- 
nation was then made unanimous.^^ The Republicans 
having a majority in the Legislature, Mr. Chandler 
was assured of a third term of six years in the United 

-yC States Senate. 

16. Advertiser and Tribune, January 8, 1869. 

17. Advertiser and Tribune, January 7, 1869. 



CHAPTER XIII 

Grant's First Administration and the Campaign 
OF 1872 

■jV/TR. CHANDLER was a firm believer in the protec- '^ 

tive principle. During the winter of 1868-69 he 
succeeded in getting through the Senate a high tariff 
on copper. The copper tariff also passed the House, 
to the great joy of the Lake Superior region. At 
Houghton, guns were fired, whistles blown and bon- 
fires lighted, but the celebration was premature — 
Johnson vetoed the bill. 

In April, 1869, Mr. Chandler made a fiery speech 
in the Senate, and offered a resolution^ to the effect 
that the President be authorized to negotiate with 
England for the transfer of the British possessions in 
North America and the consequent abandonment by- 
the United States of all claims against her. On 
motion of Mr. Sumner the resolution was referred to 
the Committee on Foreign Relations. 

Soon after the inauguration of President Grant, - 
Mr. Chandler took occasion to punish his enemies 
and reward his friends by whose help he had been 
returned to the Senate.- George Jerome was made X 
Collector of the Port at Detroit. Mr. Jerome was 
personally very popular with the voters of the State 

1. April 17, 1869. Globe, 1st Sess. 41st Cong., pp. 727-731. 

2. This account is based upon the following: Advertiser and 

Tribune, April 9, 1869; April 15, April 20, Mav 14, Aug. 
20, 1870; and January 3, 1871. 



112 ZACHARIAH CHANDLER 

and possessed great political influence. He belonged 
to the "good-fellow" type of politician, and of him it 
was said,^ "Everyone says he has carried Chandler 
on his shoulders from the outset of his, Chandler's, 
political career. I have no doubt he has been Chand- 
ler's mainstay." Mr. James M. Edmunds, perhaps 
the m.ost astute politician in Michigan and Mr. Chand- 
ler's right-hand man, was made Postmaster at Wash- 
ington, D. C. Mr. William A. Howard's reward for 
long and faithful service was an appointment as 
Minister to China; he declined this, however, to 
accept the land agency and attorneyship for the G. 
R. & I. Railroad. The District Attorneyship was 
given to Mr. A. B. Maynard. Mr. H. B. Rowlson, 
editor of the Hillsdale Standard, a paper that had 
vigorously supported the election of Senator Chandler, 
became Collector of Internal Revenue. The new 
Indian Agent, Mr. Brockway of Calhoun County, had 
lobbied for Mr. Chandler at Lansing in January, 1869. 
Another lobbyist, Mr. Edward Lefavour, was made a 
Special Treasury Agent at $6.00 per day. Hon. 
George Swift of Wayne, at first an opponent of Mr. 
Chandler's reelection but later one of his most con- 
spicuous supporters, was appointed Consul at Windsor, 
Canada. The ofQce-holders who had supported Austin 
Blair now cam.e up for punishment. Samuel Lacey 
was turned out of the Marshall post-office ; Mr. Kings- 
bury, Postmaster at Grand Rapids lost his head in 
spite of the protest of Mr. T. W. Ferry. It is un- 
necessary to complete the list. The test of fidelity 

3. MS letter. Judge J. J. Speed to J- M. Howard, dated Feb. 
9, 1869, Howard Papers, Vol. 91. 



GRANT'S FIRST ADMINISTRATION 



113 



to the Republican party in Michigan was loyalty to 
Zachariah Chandler. He dominated the whole Michi- 
gan delegation in Congress and every appointment , 
and rem.oval was one directed or authorized by him. _ 

In May 1869, Mr. Chandler in company with his 
wife and 'daughter left for Europe. Mr. Chandler ^ 
had wealth and he liked to spend it. Just how much .\ 
truth there was in the newspaper reports that he took 
alonc^ "four negro servants" is hard to say. Ac- 
cording to report, two of these were men to take care 
of the Senator; the two women were to divide their 
attentions between the two ladies of his family. _ The 
men wore coats resplendent in gold embroidery, 
grape-vines worked up the backs, and the Chandler 
coat-of-arms on the coat-tails; their hats were of 
black silk and decorated with large silver cockades. 
The ladies wore the coat-of-arms and the Chandler 
-C" on their belt buckles. A good many stones 
were told about Mr. Chandler's experiences abroad. 
On one occasion, it is said,^ he was engaged m con- 
versation with an EngUsh notable who asked why it 
was that the Americans felt such resentment towards 
England while they did not complain of France that 
had tried to induce England to join her in recogmzmg 
the Confederacy. "Oh," repHed the Senator bluntly, 
"we don't care a brass farthing what other nations 
say; its only what they do. France did not hurt us 
any; but you did." "But," urged the Englishman 
-suppose we had Hstened to Napoleon; the result 
might have been different, you know." /'How ditter- 

4. Free Press, May 8, 1870. 
15 



114 ZACHARIAH CHANDLER 

ent?" "Why, you know, the Confederates might 
have won the fight." "I don't know any such thing," 
replied the Senator. "How? You don't naean that 
the sword of England would not have turned the 
scale!" cried the amazed John Bull. "Why, look 
here," retorted the Senator, "How large an army has 
England got, anyhow? How many troops could 
England put into the field?" "Perhaps sixty thousand 
regulars." "Sixty thousand! Why Gen. Grant in 
one battle at the Wilderness killed sixty thousand 
men in four days and in a week the ranks were full 
again. If the whole British Army had been there they 
would have hindered one of our half-dozen armies 
just four days; that's all. Sir!" 
L/ On January 31, 1870, Mr. Chandler spoke on the 

Currency bill. He was a rigid opponent of inflation 
and his influence in maintaining a sound currency 
.\ was important. 

During the debate on the Funding bill, Mr. Chandler 
spoke against a proposition to establish an agency 
abroad for the payment of interest on the national 
debt. *'Mr. President," he said,^ "it is more a matter 
of pride than anything else. If we propose to take 
our stand among the first nations of the earth, it is 
beneath our dignity as a great nation to make our 
interest payable anywhere except at the Treasury 
of the United States." 
i/^ On April 19, 1870,*' Mr. Chandler offered a resolution 

in the Senate directing the President to appoint com- 
missioners tb negotiate with the people of Winnipeg 

5. March 9, 1870, Globe, 2nd Sess. 41st Cong., p. 1788. 

6. Globe, 2nd Sess. 41st Cong., 2808. 




LETITIA GRACE (DOUGLASS) CHANDLER 

Wife of Zachariah Chandler. 



GRANT'S FIRST ADMINISTRATION 115 

on the subject of annexation to the United States. 
On the 22nd he supported this by a speech^ in which 
he said, 

"We are to-day the strongest miHtary power on 
earth. . . .This continent is ours and we may as well 
notify the world now as at any future time that we 

will fight for our own We have been forbearing 

toward Great Britain ; we have been forbearing toward 
all the world; but the tim.e has now arrived to assert 
the Monroe Doctrine. The tim.e has arrived or 
nearly arrived when we shall say to all the world, 
'Hands off this continent; it is ours, and we intend to 
possess our own.' " 

The evening of May 21, the Senate met for an all 
night struggle over the bill to enforce the Fifteenth 
Amendment. Mr. Chandler's efforts in behalf of the 
bill are evidenced by the following letter:^ 

"Friend Howard, 

"The cops are acting as meanly as they know how 
come up at once & help us out dont fail. 

(Signed) "Z. Chandler. 

"Hon. J. M. Howard, 
"3 A.M." 

On the back of this letter is a note by Mr. Howard : 

"Hon. Z. Chandler, May 21, 70 On the bill to en- 
force the 15th amendt — is in a hurry — I got out of 

7. Globe, 2nd Sess. 41st Cong., p. 2288. 

8. Howard MSS. 



116 ZACHARIAH CHANDLER 

bed, went to the Senate & we passed the bill at 7^ 
A. M. & adjourned." 

On the 28th, Mr. Chandler made a speech^ in favor 
of the annexation of San Domingo. In December^" 
he made a violent attack upon Sumner for criticizing 
President Grant and the San Domingo scheme. A few 
days later Mr. Chandler wrote^^ to Charles T. Gorham 

of Marshall : 

"Sumner made a malicious attack upon the Presi- 
dent and was properly rebuked Sumner has 

no common sense he is overstocked with uncommon 

sense & [?] with one grain of common sense 

would make a splendid man but the lack is fatal. 
The President is doing splendidly is as sound a Re- 
publican as you or I & on the whole the best. ...[?] 
two Year Old I ever knew." 

Of Grant's first Administration it was said:^- "He 
has sat by and seen the Country tolerably wtII gov- 
erned." Am.ong the men w^ho dominated the Presi- 
dent — Morton, Chandler, Conkhng, Cameron and 
Butler — Mr. Chandler was one of the most influential. 
He was always ready to smoke a cigar, take a diink, 
play a game of cards or tell a good story. His ag- 
gressiveness, high spirits and talkativeness were a 
decided contrast to Grant's quiet ways and made 
them personally very congenial. Undoubtedly Mr. 

9. May 28, 1870, Globe, 2nd Scss. 41st Cong., p. 408. 

10. Dec. 21, 1870, Globe, 3rd Scss. 41st Cong., p. 241-3. 

11. MS letter dated Jan. 7, 1871. 

12. Springfield Republican, Nov. 24, 1871. 



GRANT'S FIRST ADMINISTRATION 117 

Chandler's influence over Grant was nsed to further 
a harsh poUcy towards the South, a jingoistic and 
expansionist policy abroad and opposition to civil 
service reform at home. No man w^as more active in 
bringing about the removal of Mr. Sum.ner from the 
Senate Committee on Foreign Relations and sub- 
stituting Simon Cameron than was Mr. Chandler. 
As a member of the "Ku Klux Com.mittee" he was 
active in bringing out information which would show 
the necessity of keeping the South in subjection. In 
1872 he opposed abolishing the moiety system in con- 
nection with the collection of the tariff and. internal 
revenue — a system valuable for corrupt office-holders 
who desired graft, but an obstacle in the way of reform 
■of the customs service. He voted on March 7, 1872, 
for an amendment to the Legislative Appropriation 
bill to repeal all laws and regulations establishing civil 
service reform and competitive examinations. This 
amendment was laid on the table on motion of Senator 
Trumbull by a vote of 40 to 19 — Cameron, Chandler 
and Carpenter were among the 19. 

Mr. Chandler was personally honest. His bitterest 
■enemies never ventured to suggest, seriously, that he 
ever touched a penny of the public money that did not 
belong to him. But he was a practical politician. 
He opposed civil service reform because it would 
interfere with the patronage. He had grown ac- 
customed to the political methods which some men 
were now trying to remedy and he liked them; they 
had served him well and with them he hoped to keep 
the power that he had. 

The Senatorial contest of January, 1871, resulted 



118 ZACHARIAH CHANDLER 

in the election of Thomas W. Ferry of Grand Haven to 
succeed Jacob M. Howard. "The real contest was 
between Ferry and Blair, as location was made the one 
important thing in the contest," wrote^'^ Mr. Chandler 
to his friend C. T. Gorham. The Blair-Fish letter no 
doubt had considerable influence. ^^ Dr. Fish had 
written a letter to Blair describing the deal between 
Ferry and Chandler which resulted in the sudden 
withdrawal of Ferry in January, 1869, and the election 
of Chandler to the Senate. In reply Mr. Blair wrote 
to Fish a letter in which he declared that Howard 
"has been the right bower of all the corrupt rings 
here" and expressed his opinion in regard to the leading 
Republican politicians by the words, "a lot of corrupt 
scoundrels." This letter was confidential and was 
siu-reptitiously taken from Dr. Fish's desk and pub- 
lished in the Free Press. As a result, Mr. Blair found 
himself not only politically but personally hated by 
the dominant Ring. They fought him bitterly. When 
J. M. Howard found his own chances of reelection 
gone he threw most of his vote in favor of Ferry, 
with the result that Blair's political prestige suffered 
a blow from which it never recovered. 

The campaign of 1872^^ in Michigan was a contest 
between the Radical Republicans on the one hand and 
the Liberal Republicans and Democrats acting in 
harmony on the other. The radicals declared that the 
problems growing out of the war constituted the most 

13. MS letter dated Jan. 7, 1871. 

14. On this see Advertiser and Tribune, Jan. 11, 1871. 

15. For a fuller account of this cain]^ai.<:;n see H. M. Dilla, 

Politics of Michigan, 1865-1878, in Columbia University 
Studies, XLVII, No. 1, pp. 129-147. 



GRANT'S FIRST ADMINISTRATION 119 

vital issue before the nation. They congratulated 
themselves upon their record and declared that they 
were the only party that could be trusted to keep the 
Government from the hands of those who had tried to 
break up the Union. The Liberal Republicans and 
the Democrats insisted that the war was over; that the 
"bloody-shirt" had been waved long enough, that 
amnesty should be promptly granted to form.er rebels; 
that the Radical Administration was full of corruption 
and had failed to meet the new issues of reform. 

During the campaign of 1872, Mr. Blair joined 
the Liberal Republicans. In a speech at MarshalP*^ 
he declared that the old Republican party had failed 
to meet the new issues of reform and that the ring in 
national politics was but a replica of a ring which 
had dominated the Republican party of Michigan for 
years. 

Mr. Chandler, of course, denounced the cry of 
reform. At Orange, N. J.,-^^ he said: "What are they 
howling for reform for? We have it now. There is 
hardly a man who is setting up his cry for reform 
who is not a corrupt scoundrel or a thief. What is 

Lyman Trumbull? How about Doolittle?" At 

Adrian, Michigan,^* he accused Austin Blair of dis- 
honesty in office. Mr. Chandler's stimip speeches 
usually opened with a funny story. His favorite 
story during the campaign of 1872 ran something like 

16. Detroit Tribune, July 15, 1872. 

17. New York Times, Aug. 25, 1872, McPherson's Campaign 

of 1872, IV, 58, 59. 

18. Aug. 2, 1872, Adrian Times, Aug. 3, McPherson's Cam- 

paign oj '72, Vol. III. 



120 ZACHARIAH CHANDLER 

this:^^ "During the war a private in an Illinois regi- 
ment went into a drinking saloon, where he found a 
man in chaplain's uniform, evidently much inebriated, 
who asked him what regiment he belonged to. The 
19th Illinois,' was the answer. 'What do you belong 
to?' The drunken man straightened up and replied, 
'I belong to the Army of the Lord, Sir!' 'Well,' said 
the soldier, 'that may be, but to my thinking you are 
a thunderin' ways from headquarters!' Now any 
man who supports the nominees of the Baltimore 
convention must, if he claims to be a Republican, be 
'a thunderin' ways from headquarters.' " 

Of course Mr. Chandler compared the records of the 
Republican and Democratic parties, waved the 
"bloody-shirt," praised Grant and fidiculed Greeley. 
He had no doubt as to the outcome^ ' As early as 
August 24, 1871, he wrote to C. T. Gorham:'" "The 
political outlook was never so good as at present. 
Our enemies are doing the work hetter than we could. 
In fact, if we make no mistakes the battle of 1872 is 
already fought and won. There will be little or no 
opposition to President Grant's renomination except 
for Sumner and Schurz & their prestige is gone. Schurz 
has gone to the C — —Democracy & taken Missouri 
with him & can do us no more harm. Sumner will 
grumble and growl and support the [?]" 

In July, 1872, he again wrote to Mr. Gorham:'-^ 
' ' The political outlook for Grant is good and growing 
better. We have every reason to believe that the 

19. Speech at Norembega Hall, Bant^or, Maine, July, 1872. 

McPherson's Campaign of '72, III, 11-12. 

20. MS letter. 

21. MS letter. 



GRANT'S FIRST ADMINISTRATION 121 

percentage of Reptiblicans who will support Greeley 
will be very small while on the other hand many 
democrats will vote for Grant as preferable to Greeley 
& many more will not vote at all. The colored men 
will vote as a unit for Grant although the Greeleyites 
are making desperate efforts to carry them over to 
the other side. The contest promises to be a very 
personal one & abuse without limit will be poured on 
the heads of the prominent characters of both parties. 
The Democrats are making the most desperate efforts 
to win & the Republicans are equally determined that 
their ancient enemies with their allies shall gain 
nothing in the way of office, power or control of nation- 
al affairs. You have doubtless heard of the defection 
of Austin Blair. This was not expected. He waited 
until it was morally certain that Greeley would be 
nominated by the Democrats at Baltimore and then 
with a great parade of mock virtuous indignation he 
deserted the Republican camp & threw him.self into 
the expectant arms of the Democracy. It is believed 
that they have made some fine promises & will nominate 
him either for Governor or for Congress — It is im- 
material to the old National Republican party of 
Michigan what they do with their newly found political 
treasure. He will be flattened out completely and 
permanently in a political sense whenever our people 
have the opportunity to be heard at the ballot-box. 
His old friends and the Republican Press throughout 
the State including the Jackson Citizen condemn Mr. 
Blair's course in emphatic term.s & his following will 
doubtless be very small. The people of Michigan are 



122 ZACHARIAH CHANDLER 

too thoroughly embued with Republican principles to 
give them up for the husks of Democracy." 

Mr. Chandler's most sanguine expectations were 
fully realized. The Republican majority for Grant 
in Michigan was over 55,000. Even the Democratic 
strongholds of Detroit and Wayne County were re- 
deemed at last. 



CHAPTER XIV 

Grant's Second Term and Mr. Chandler's Defeat 
IN 1875 

]\/rR. CHANDLER had the good sense to vote 
against the Salary Grab bill and to speak in op- 
position to the increase in the pay of Senators and 
Representatives. Of course Mr. Chandler's living 
expenses in Washington far exceeded the amount of 
his salary as Senator. His house in Washington was 
situated in the most fashionable quarter; his annual 
expense at the Capital was not far from $35,000 or 
$40,000. Washington correspondents waxed eloquent 
over his "coach and footman" and the "livery" of 
his house servants which included silver buttons 
mounted with the Chandler "C." The dehut of 
Mr. Chandler's only daughter was a most gorgeous 
affair and was described by Mark Twain in a very 
amusing letter to the Chicago Republican} 

On January 20, 1874, Mr. Chandler made a speech^ 
in the Senate against inflation of the cun-ency by further 
issues of greenbacks and advocated an immediate 
Tesum.ption of specie payments. As a war measure, 
Mr. Chandler had voted for an issue of greenbacks in 
1862 and 1865, but his natural shrewdness showed 
him the fallacy of inflating the currency. He wrote 

1. Reprinted in Detroit Post, February 20, 1868 and Free 

Press, February 22, 1868. 

2. Globe, 1st Sess. 43rd Cong., p. 777-8. 






124 ZACHARIAH CHANDLER 

to C. T. Gorham,^ ''I have heartily opposed inflation 
at every point, but if the inflationists succeed in con- 
trolHng our financial policy, suppose I can endure 
living in a balloon as long as any of them." 

The death of Charles Svimner left Chandler the 
senior Senator in continuous service. HamHn and 
Cameron entered the Senate with Chandler in 1857, 
but both had been out for a period since then.* 

The campaign of 1874 was of great importance to 
Chandler because his term in the Senate expired 
Alarch 4, 1875, and it was to the Legislatiu-e elected in 
1874 that he had to look for reelection. 

The schism made in the Republican ranks by the 
Liberal RepubHcan movement in 1872 reappeared in 
the organization of the RepubHcan opposition as a 
National Reform party in 1874. Criticism of the Ad- 
ministration by both National Reformers and Demo- 
crats consisted of charges of corruption, extravagance 
in national expenditures and usurpation of power in 
interfering with the States lately in rebelHon. The 
Salary Grab Act, the Credit MobiHer scandal, the 
Press-Gag law, and many other instances of radical 
evil-doing were made the most of by the opposition 
parties. It was also declared that the radicals were 
determined to give Grant a third term and that the 
patronage of the National Government was corruptly 
K used to maintain the old party in power. The cam- 
paign gives evidence of a wide-spread feeling of dis- 
satisfaction with the still unsatisfactory conditions in 
the lately reconstructed States and the corruption 

3. Aprill, 1874. MS letter. 

4. Detroit Tribune, March 14, 1874. 




ZACHARIAH CHANDLER 

From the oil portrait in the Capitol, Lansing. 



CHANDLER'S DEFEAT IN 1875 125 

among men who held high office in the nation's capital. 
Men were growing weary of the ceaseless cry of the 
Radicals against those who had brought on the re- 
bellion. They felt that the South had been punished 
enough and they were anxious to bring peace to the 
people who had suffered so much for their mistaken 
convictions. 

The condition of the currency too was a matter 
for anxious thought. The country was suffering from 
the effects of the panic of 1873 and all parties were 
split into factions occupying diverse views on the 
desirability of inflating the currency by further issues 
of greenbacks or the advisability of resuming specie 
payments and maintaining the currency on a "sound 
money" basis. The State conventions of all the 
parties in Michigan were so convinced of the hopeless- 
ness of uniting their followers upon any comm.on 
ground respecting the currency question that they all 
adopted platforms so vague in their terms on this 
point that both hard-money and soft-money men 
could read them with hope if not with confidence. 
In the Republican party in Michigan the seriousness 
of this diversity in its ranks is shown by the fact that 
the two Senators occupied diverse positions upon the 
money question: Mr. Chandler demanded hard money 
and the immediate resumption of specie payments; 
Mr. Ferry demanded inflation by further issues of 
greenbacks. In his campaign speeches, Mr. Chandler, 
who knew his Bible well, quoted from the Scriptures 
to prove that the Liberal Republican party was of 
ancient origin — was, in fact, born in the Cave of 
Abdullam. The Democratic press ridiculed these " ser- 



126 ZACHARIAH CHANDLER 

mons" and redoubled their attacks upon Mr. Chand- 
ler's personal habits. 

The tidal-wave of 1874 wrought havoc with the 
Republican party of Michigan. They secured a bare 
majority in the Legislature. The Senate had 18 
Republicans and 14 Democrats; in the House there 
were 53 Republicans and 47 Dem.ocrats.^ Immediately 
following the election the Senatorial question began 
to be widely discussed. The Detroit Tribnne led the 
,X^ opposition to Mr. Chandler. This paper admitted 
that on the questions growing out of the war and 
slavery, Mr. Chandler's votes and speeches had been 
on the right side; it acknowledged that no trait of 
personal venality attached to him; but it declared that 
he had identified himself with an obnoxious system of 
party management which had resulted in wide-spread 
discontent with the Republican party; he represented 
the spoils system and opposed reform; he was a machine 
politician; he dominated the "Ring" in A4ichigan and 
was associated with Butler in Washington.*^ 

Mr. Chandler was already ''organizing victory." 
As early as August 12, he wrote^ to Charles T. Gorham, 
an able lieutenant of Marshall, but at this time United 
States Minister to the Netherlands: 

"Political matters are looking very well throughout 
the State but I shall want you here of course as 3^our 
influence will be important & we m,ake it a rule never 
to lose anything by inattention and neglect." 

An illuminating incident cam.e out in connection 

5. Detroit Tribune, Nov. 28, 1874.. 

6. Tribune, Nov. 27, 1874. 

7. MS letter. 



CHANDLER'S DEFEAT IN 1875 127 

with a vacancy in the office of deputy collector at 
Wyandotte. There were of course numerous ap- 
plicants for the place. Mr. Griffin, editor of the 
Wyandotte Courier, was among them. Being in 
Detroit about November 27, he called on Chandler's 
right-hand man, George Jerome, Collector at Detroit, 
who told him that his commission was in his safe but 
that its delivery depended upon Representative Oco- 
bock's action in the election of a Senator. In other 
words Mr. Griffin was to become deputy collector in 
case he could influence the Representative from his 
district to vote for Mr. Chandler. ^ In December, 
Mr. Reynolds, postmaster at Grand Haven, received^ 
a large number of newspaper clippings, arguing for 
the return of Mr. Chandler to the Senate, accompanied 
by a request that he secure their insertion in the 
Grand Haven Herald. Political assessments were of 
course levied on office-holders and so far as possible 
only Chandler men had been nominated for the Legis- 
latiu-e. 

Mr. Chan dler's plan^^^ was to call a caucus of Re- 

8. Tribune, Dec. 26, Dec. 30 and Free Press. Jan. 6 1875 

9. Detroit Tribune, Dec. 29, 1874. 

10. In writing this account of Mr. Chandler's defeat, I have 
rehed upon the following sources : 

a. The contemporary newspapers. 

b. An interview with Mr. S. L. Kilbourne, a Demo- 

cratic member of the Michigan Legislature in 
1875. 

c. A letter written me by Mr. LeRov Parker of 

Batavia, N. Y., a Republican m'ember from 
Branch County who voted against Mr. Chandler 
in 1875. 

d. A letter from Rev. H. P. Collin of Coldwater, 

Michigan, who very kindly interviewed for me 
Mr. VanAiken, one of the seven Republicans 
who voted against Mr. Chandler's election. 



128 ZACHARIAH CHANDLER 

publican members as soon as possible. He had a 
majority of the Republicans pledged to support him, 
and the Republicans were a majority in the Legis- 
lature. If he could get all of the Republicans into 
caucus and bind them to him by caucus action before 
the opposition had time to organize, he could win. 
But there were some Republicans in the Legislature 
that refused to attend the caucus and stood firm upon 
"no caucus dictation." Out of 71 Republican mem- 
bers of the Legislature only 59 signed the call and only 
57 attended the caucus. The caucus was held on 
Thursday evening, January 7. Upon the first informal 
caucus ballot, Mr. Chandler received 52 votes; J. W. 
Childs, 3; Judge J. V. Campbell and Governor John 
J. Bagley 1 each. A motion was made, and put by a 
standing vote, to make the nomination unanimous; 
but one member, Bailey of Shiawassee, voted. No. 
The caucus, then, had bound 57 mem.bers to vote for 
Mr. Chandler; 67 were necessary to elect him. The 
m.en who stayed out of the caucus were Senator Jones 
of Branch, Representatives Billings and Parker of 
Genesee, Van Aiken and Robinson of Branch, West of 
Berrien, Hardin of Allegan, Garfield and Briggs of 
Kent, Copley of Van Buren, Neff of Wayne, Ludington 
of Huron, Ocobock of Wayne, and Taylor of Shiawas- 
see. Both Ludington and Ocobock signed the caucus 
call, however, and voted for Chandler. 

Mr. Chandler was on the ground early, with an 
immense lobby that attached itself to the recusant 
Republicans and attempted to influence them by every 
argument that ingenuity and skill could devise. Four 
Methodist ministers were conspicuous members of the 



CHANDLER'S DEFEAT IN 1875 129 

lobby and were useful in attacking men on their 
moral and spiritual side. Chandler agents were sent 
to kindle back-fires in the districts of the doubtful 
m.embers and to circulate petitions urging them, to vote 
for Chandler. Thomas J. West of Berrien, who came 
to Lansing an avowed anti- Chandler man, was won 
over^^ by a delegation of citizens from Benton Harbor 
imploring him. not to vote against Chandler because 
Chandler, being Chairman of the Committee on Com.- 
m.erce, could get through a hoped-for appropriation 
for the Paw Paw River. Mr. West was taken by the 
delegation to Mr. Chandler's rooms and Mr. Chandler 
declared that the bill would receive his tenderest care. 
Nothing was said about Mr. West's vote, but Mr. 
West frankly told the minority that he should vote for 
Chandler, as he could in this way serve his constituents 
in a vital matter. 

On January 19 the vote for United States Senator 
was taken, the two houses acting separately. In the 
Senate Mr. Chandler received a bare majority: 17 out 
of 32; in the House no one had a majority. On the . 
following day the two Houses met in joint convention 
On the first ballot, Mr. Chandler received 64 votes 
the Dem.ocrats gave 60 votes for George V. N. Lothrop 
LP. Christiancy received 5 and J. Webster Childs, 3, 
total 132; necessary to a choice, 67. Mr. Chandler 
lacked but three votes of a majority. Of the 14 Re- 
publicans who refused to attend the caucus, seven 
had been won over and seven remained obdurate. 
Representative Garfield of Kent had surrendered only 
at the last moment. Lie was old and weak from, sick- 

11. Tribune, January 11, 1875. 
17 



130 ZACHARIAH CHANDLER 

ness and had been subjected to lobby pressure day 
and night. As he arose to vote he said, "Contrary to 
my own convictions but in response to a petition 
signed by 412 of my constituents, and to the persistent 
dem.ands of a lobby twice as large, I vote for Zachariah 
Chandler."^- On Wednesday, the 20th, then, no one 
had a majority, and the convention adjourned. On 
Thursday, the Legislature again met in joint con- 
vention. The Democrats, despairing of gaining the 
support of the Republican minority for a Democratic 
candidate, and fearful of another Chandler victory, 
now united with the seven anti-Chandler Republicans 
upon a compromise candidate, Isaac P. Christiancy, 
a conservative Republican and one of the Justices of 
the Suprem.e Court of Michigan. The first ballot 
stood Christiancy 68, Chandler 63, Bagley 1. Before 
the clerk could announce the result. Chandler men, 
foreseeing the defeat of their candidate, began to 
change their votes to various Republicans in hope of 
attracting opposition votes and breaking the election. 
The plan failed. Zachariah Chandler was defeated 
at last. 

Of the seven Republicans who voted against Air. 
Chandler to the last, three were from Branch County. 
The Branch County men refused to sign the call or 
attend the caucus, and it was afterwards said that 
"Branch County killed Mr. Chandler." The Branch 
County members were opposed to the political system 
that he represented. They did not belong to the 
Chandler "Ring;" they were farmers who wanted a 
more democratic system of party management, and 
12. Michigan Argits, Jan. 29, 1875. 



CHANDLER'S DEFEAT IN 1875 131 

they had a grievance. Cyrus G. Luce, a long-time 
resident of Gilead Township, Branch County, a 
farmer and a friend of the Branch County m.embers 
of the Legislature, was opposed to Chandler. He be- 
Heved, and they believed, that Mr. Chandler had 
cheated Mr. Luce out of a Republican nomination for 
State Treasurer by directing the tellers in the Re- 
pubHcan Convention to announce fraudulently that a 
ballot for State Treasurer, by which Mr. Luce would 
have received the nomination, was void, there being 
m.ore votes than delegates. ^ 

Representative Parker of Genesee opposed Mr. 
Chandler on account of his poHtical methods. A 
letter from him reads : 

"The State had been almost lost to the party that 
fall and I was confident that it was largely due to the 
too practical poHtics of Senator Chandler." 

But back of all these reasons there lay a cause that 
is bound to overtake the most astute of politicians, 
and that is, the pushing of the younger element for 
recognition. These seven RepubHcans were young 
men, who resented the dominance of a ring of older 
poHticians. Chandler had held office for eighteen 
years; he had his friends, tried and true, whom he kept 
in the most lucrative positions within his control. 
The young m.en wanted their share, and in 1875 they 
had an opportunity to throw down the barriers that 
had so long kept them from place and power. 

Mr. Chandler felt greatly chagrined over his defeat, i. 
and took the first train for Washington. On February /^ 
17 he wrote to C. T. Gorham the following letter— 



132 ZACHARIAH CHANDLER 

' ' United States Senate Chamber, 
"Vv^ashington, Feb. 17, 1875. 
''My Dear Sir, 

"Your kind favor of the 20th of Dec. has been mis- 
laid or would have received earlier reply. 

"The Senatorial contest is over and the Democrats 
with a handful of bolting quasi Republicans have won 
the victory. 

"They hope by this maneuvre to so demorahze the 
Republican party in the State, that it can be carried 
for the Democracy in 1876 but I shall do what I can 
to cause their victory to be a barren one to turn their 
rejoicings into lam.entations, to see that their bright 
hopes, like Dead Sea fruit, turn to ashes on their lips. 

"They also solace themselves with the idea that 
having been beaten in this contest, I will of course go 
into state of retirement, seldom if ever to be heard 
from again. In this they will meet with another 
great disappointment, for with a fair prospect of at 
least twenty years more of vigorous health I shall be 
able to m.ake the working of their political plans an 
interesting puzzle to all parties in interest. 

"Our work is plain but laborious. With unity, har- 
m.ony and hard work we can still keep the Dem.ocratic 
forces training in the awkward squad while ours stand 
shoulder to shoulder. 

"Very truly yours, 

"Z. Chandler. 
"Hon. C. T. Gorham." 



CHAPTER XV 

Summary of Mr. Chandler's Political Career, 
1875-1879 

OOME of Mr. Chandler's m.ost important work was 
done after his retirement from the Senate 
March 4, 1875. In October of that year he was ap- 
pointed, by President Grant, Secretary of the Interior 
to succeed Mr. Delano. Mr. Chandler made many 
changes in the personnel of his Department, put a 
stop to the glaring frauds which existed there and in- 
troduced business methods of administration.^ 

In the summer of 1876, Mr. Chandler was chosen 
Chairman of the National Republican Committee. 
He was the real director of the Hayes campaign, and 
the incongruity of the campaign of a civil service re- 
form candidate directed by a dyed-in-the-wool spoils- 
m.an like Zachariah Chandler, did not escape comm.ent.^ 
On the morning after the election Mr. Chandler sent 
the following telegram^ over the wires of the Associated 
Press: "Rutherford B. Hayes has received one hun- 
dred and eighty -five electoral votes, and is elected." 

1. George F. Hoar says in his Autobiography of Seventy Years 

(II, 75), "I knew him afterwards in the Department of 
the Interior. He was, in my judgment, the ablest ad- 
ministrative officer without an exception who has been 
in any executive department during my pubhc Hfe." 

2. Letter of E. L. Godkin to C. E. Norton as given in Ogden's 

Life of Godkin, II, 112-113. 

3. Foulke, Life of Oliver P. Morton, II, 432; John Shcmian's 

Recollcciions of- Forty Years, I, 553. 



134 ZACHARIAH CHANDLER 

There are men still living who believe that the final 
success of Hayes was due to the efficiency of Zachariah 
Chandler's political methods in manipulating the re- 
turning boards in the Southern States. Once elected, 
however, President Hayes appointed his Cabinet from 
the reforming element of his party, and Carl Schurz, 
to the chagrin of the radicals,^ succeeded Mr. Chandler 
y in the Interior Depart m.ent. On April 26, 1877, Mr. 
Chandler wrote^ to C. T. Gorham: 

''The D 1 is let loose for a season. The mo- 
ment you & I left it was announced [?] that neither 
of us would return and the Indian Bureau thieves 
com.menced their onslaught. Smith is run by the 
Chief Clerk and / tJii?ik is captured by the thieves. 
At any rate he has recommended the most of them. 
Any one but you and I would say let em come hack but 
I cannot consent even for our Glory to have it done 

Why should I desire [?] any [?] more of strife 

and confusion I dont know. 

He wrote again to Mr. Gorham" on May 9: "I am 
not a candidate for Christiancy's seat. I will not at- 
tempt to apologize for what has no apology. I will 
not fight the battles of 57, 8, 9 and 60 over again. 
Then I was in pistol and rifle practice and met the Rebs 
on equal ground now I am out of practice & am over 
60 years of age. . . .Hayes has passed The Repub 
party over to its worst enemy. We have no hope for 

4. Reminiscences of Carl Schurz, III, 375. 

5. MS letter. 

6. MS letter. 




STATUE OF ZAdlAKIAII ('HANDLE] 

In Statuary Hall, Unitecl States Capitol. 



^ 



SUMMARY 1875-79 135 

1878 even in Ohio & Indiana or Illinois but can & iscill 
beat them in 1880." 

On February 18, 1879, Mr. Chandler was elected to 
the United States Senate to serve the unexpired term 
of I. P. Christiancy, resigned. Mr. Chandler's "Jeff. 
Davis Speech" of March 3, 1879, was the sensation 
of the close of the session. The Campaign of 1879 
found Mr. Chandler again upon the stump. On 
October 31 he spoke at Chicago. That night he re- 
tired, as well, apparently, as usual. The following 
morning he was found dead in his bed at the Grand 
Pacific Hotel. 

With the death of Zachariah Chandler a national 
figure passed away. His political position w^as more 
commanding during the summer of 1879 than ever 
before." Even in New England he was received with ^ 
unbounded enthusiasm, and btit for his sudden death 
he would have been among the most formidable 
candidates for the Presidency at the next election.^ '~" x^ 

7. Blaine, Twenty Years of Congress, II, 642. 

8. George F. Hoar, Autobiography of Seventy Years, II, 76. 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 

ilBLIOGRAPHICAL AIDS 



Dilla, H. M. The Politics of Michigan, 1865-1878. (Columbia 

University Studies, Vol. XLVII, No. 1), pp. 255-258. 
Index to New York Tribune, 1876-1880. 



GENERAL SECONDARY WORKS 



Appleton's Annual Cyclopaedia, 1864. 

McPherson, E., Political History of the Great Rebellion. 

McPhersoii, E., Political History of the United States During the 

Period of Reconstruction, 1865-1870. 
Moore, ¥.] Rebellion Record, 1861-1868. 



STATISTICS 



Michigan Almanac, published by Detroit Tribune Co. 
Michigan Legislative Manuals. 

Tribune Almanac, published by New York Tribune. 
World Almanac, published by New York World. 



OFFICIAL DOCUMENTS 



Congressional Globe and Congressional Record. 

Report of the Joint Committee on the Conduct of the War. 



PERIODICALS 

American Whig Review, Dec., 1852. "A Political Letter." 
Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper, May 15th, 1869, has a short 

article on Z. Chandler. 
Granite Monthly, March, 1882. Article by M. M. Culver. "New 

Hampshire Men in Michigan, No. 2. Hon. Z. Chandler." 
Magazine of Western History, for June, July and August, 1886. 

Article on Mr. Chandler by Walter Bucll.' 
Political Science Quarterly, Vol. VII, p. 522, A. D. Morse, "The 

Republican Party." 
Putnam's Magazine, September, 1854, "Our Parties and Politics." 



140 ZACHARIAH CHANDLER 

BIOGRAPHIES (INDIVIDUAL) 

Fessenden, F., Wm. Pitt Fessenden. 

Flower, F. A., Edwin M. Stanton. 

Flower, F. A., Matthew H. Carpenter. 

Foiilke, W. D., Oliver P. Morton. 

Hamlin, C. E., Hannibal Hamlin. 

McLaughlin, A. C, Lewis Cass. 

Merriam, G. S., Samuel Bowles. 

Nicolay and Hay, Abraham Lincoln. A History. 

Nicolay and Hay, Complete Works of A. Lincoln, Vol. IX, p. 112. 

Pierce, E. L.. Charles Sumner. 

Post-Tribune, Zachariah Chandler. 

Riddle, A. G., Benjamin F. Wade. 

BIOGRAPHIES (COLLECTED) 

Appleton, Cyclopaedia of American Biography. 

Barnes, W. H., History of Congress (40th and 41st). 

Bersey, J., Cyclopaedia of Michigan. 

H. Taylor Company (publishers). Compendium of the History and 

Biography of Detroit. 
Farmer, S., History of Detroit and Michigan, Vo . U. 
National Cyclopaedia of American Biography. 

NEWSPAPERS 

Ann Arbor, Michigan, Michigan Argus. 

Detroit, Michigan, Advertiser; Advertiser and Tribune; Daily 

Democrat; Free Press; Post; Tribune. 
Jackson, Michigan, Citizen. 
Marshall, Michigan, Statesman. 
New York, N. Y., Nation. 
Niles, Michigan, Republican. 
Pontiac, Michigan, Gazette. 
Springfield, Mass., Republican. 

NEWSPAPER CLIPPINGS (COLLECTED) 

McPherson's Scrap Books. (Pol. 1864-1875) Library of Congress. 
Townsend Library, Columbia University. 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 141 

AUTOBIOGR-\PHY AND REMINISCENCES 

Blaine, Jas. G., Twenty Years of Congress. 

Grant, U. S., Personal Memoirs. 

Hoar, G. F., Autobiography of Seventy Years. 

■Julian, G. W., Political Recollections. 

McClellan, G. B., Oivn Story. 

McClure, A. K., Recollections of Half a Century. 

Poore, B. P., Per ley's Reminiscences. 

Riddle, A. G., Recollections of War Times. 

Schurz, C., Reminiscences. 

Sherman, J., Recollections of Forty Years. 

MONOGRAPHS 

Campbell, J. V., Outlines of Political History of Michigan. 

Cox, S. S., Three Decades of Federal Legislation. 

Curtis, P., The Republican Party. 

De Land, V., History of Jackson County. 

De Witt, D. M., Impeachment and Trial of A. Johnson. 

Dilla, H. M., Political History of Michigan, 1865-1878. 

Farmer, S., History of Detroit and Michigan, Vol. I. 

Haworth, P. L., Hayes-Tilden Disputed Presidential Election of 
1876. 

-Macy, J., Political Parties. 

Michigan Historical Collections, Vols. XIV, XXXV, XXXVIII. 

Roberts, P.. E., Sketches of Detroit. 

Turner, F. J., "The West as a Field for Historical Study" in Amer- 
ican Historical Association, Report, 1896. 

MANUSCRIPT MATERIAL 

I have found Chandler letters or letters concerning Chandler 
among the Lyman Trumbull, E. B. Washburn and Andrew 
Johnson papers in the Congressional Library and among the 
Jacob M._ Howard and Jas. F. Joy papers in the Burton Library 
in Detroit. I foimd a letter of some importance from Mr. 
Chandler in the possession of the Historical Commission in 
Lansing, Michigan. Mrs. A. F. Redficld of Marshall, Michigan, 
allowed me to copy some eighteen letters written by Mr. 
Chandler to C. T. Gorham. 



INDEX 



INDEX 



Adams, C. F., 49 

Advertiser, Detroit newspaper, 21, 
28 

Advertiser and Tribune, Detroit 
newspaper, 103 

Alabama claims, 99 

Antietam, battle of, helped Re- 
publicans carry elections in 1862, 
67 

Bagley, John J., 128 

Baptists, denounced for anti- 
slavery agitation, 32 

Barnes, Henry, Detroit editor, 
delegate to National Union Con- 
vention, 1866, 92 

Bibliography, general aids, 136; 
general secondary works; statis- 
tical works, 136; documents, 136; 
periodicals, 136; biographies, 137; 
newspapers,. 137; newspaper clip- 
pings (collected), 137; autobiog- 
raphies and reminiscences, 137; 
monographs, 137; manuscript ma- 
terials, 137 

Bingham, Kinsley S., 

eulogized by Chandler at Jack- 
son Convention, 25; nominated 
Governor of Michigan by Free 
Democrats, 23; nominated Gov- 
ernor of Michigan by Republi- 
cans (1854), 25; elected Governor 
of Michigan, 28; candidate for 
United States Senate (1857), 40; 
opposes compromise, 54; elected 
to Senate, 63; death, 63 
Blair, Austin, 49, 53, 54, 74; 

candidate for United States Sen- 
ate, 40, 63, 108-109, 118; betrayed 



by Ferry (1868), 108-109; Chand- 
ler punishes his supporters, 112; 
character, 108; joins Liberal Re- 
publicans, 119; accused by 
Chandler of dishonesty in office, 
119; denounced by Chandler, 121 

Blair-Fish letter, 118 

Blair, Montgomery, 58, 74 

Blodgett, Delos A., 37, 67 

Blood-letter, 54, 66 

Branch County, members in legis- 
lature help defeat Chandler in 
1875, 130 

Brown, John, Chandler's speech on, 
47-48 

Buchanan, James, 28, 45-47 

Bull Run, Battle of, Chandler 
present at, 57, 58 

Butler, Benjamin F., 126; Chand- 
ler's opinion of, 59; Chandler's 
defence of, 72; certifies to Chand- 
ler's sobriety, 106 

Cameron, Simon, 117; agreement 
with Wade and Chandler to 
resent insults of Southern Sena- 
tors, 48 

Campaign of, see Election of 

Campbell, Judge J. V., 128; Out- 
lines of Political History of Mich- 
igan, 138 

Cass, Lewis, 17, 25; quoted on con- 
duct of clergy in politics, d,i; 
Nicholson letter, 39; character- 
ized, 40 

Catholics, 23, 35 (n. 9), 37, 67; see 
Democratic party 

Chandler, Zachariah 
Early years, 7 



146 



INDEX 



Mayor of Detroit; nominated by 
Whigs (1851), 7; elected, 8; 
city printing controversy, 10-11; 
quoted on failure of Revolution 
of 1848, 12-13; comments on his 
administration, 13 
Candidate for Governor of Mich- 
igan; nominated by Whigs (1852), 
14; quoted on his nomination; 
14; campaign speeches, 17; de- 
feat, 18: see Election of 1852 in 
Michigan 

Work in formation of Republican 
Party in Michigan; activity in 
anti-slavery meeting in Detroit 
in 1854, 21; negotiates with Free 
Soilers, 23; favors dissolution of 
Whig party and organization of 
a new party based on anti- 
slavery, 21; leader in Jackson 
Convention, 24; speech at Jack- 
son Convention, 24-25; his re- 
ward to come later, 26; a true 
representation of the radical 
spirit of the Northwest, 34; 
quoted on election of 1862, 37 
Elected to succeed Lewis Cass 
in Senate (1857); real struggle 
took place in Republican caucus, 
40; political methods, 41; nature 
of his support, 41 ; reasons for his 
success, 41-44 

Early Years in the Senate and 
Campaign of 1860; slaveocracy 
in control opposed by Chandler, 
44; speech attacking Democrats 
for monopolizing memberships on 
standing committees, 45; speech 
on Kansas (Mar. 12, 1858), 45; 
efforts to secure appropriation for 
channel through St. Clair Flats, 
46; arraigns Democrats for ex- 
travagance, 46-47; speech on 
John Brown raid, 47-48; insult- 
ing speeches of Southern Senators 



resented, 48; letter to Lyman 
Trumbull on Campaign of 1860, 
48-49; campaign speeches in 
Michigan, New York, New Eng- 
land and Illinois, 49; letter to 
Lyman Trumbull urging that 
Lincoln visit Detroit, 49-50; 
letter to Lyman Trumbull on 
financial situation (Nov. 1860), 
51-52 

Senator in War Time; letter to 
Gov. Blair opposing Peace Con- 
gress, 53; Blood-letter, 53; votes 
on Corwin proposition and Chit- 
tenden Resolutions, 54 (n. 4); 
speech of Mar. 2 defending 
Blood-letter and opposing all com- 
promise, 54-55; acrid reply of 
Sen. Wigfall of Texas, 55-56; re- 
marks on Pacific Railway bill, 
56; amendment to Pacific Ry. 
bill agreed to by Senate, 56 (n. 
10); urges Lincoln to arrest 
traitors in Congress, 57; present 
at Bull Run, 57; urges Lincoln to 
prosecute war more vigorously, 
57; calls upon McClellan, 57; 
offers resolution in Senate to ap- 
point committee on Conduct of 
the War, 58; appointed member 
of Committee on Conduct of the 
War, 59 ; speech in Senate against 
McClellan, 60; letter to Trum- 
bull on early reverses of Union 
Arms, 60-61; narrow and prej- 
udiced yet courageous and zeal- 
ous, 62; supports policy of con- 
fiscating rebel property, 62; op- 
poses J. M. Howard for Senator 
and favors H. G. Wells, 63; 
political methods, 64 
Campaign of 1862 in Michigan 
and vSecond Election to the 
Senate; his reelection to Senate 
the chief issue in campaign of 



INDEX 



147 



1862, 65; political methods, 65- 
66; letter to Trumbiill, 66; 
letter to C. T. Gorham, 67; 
lobby at Lansing, Jan., 1863, 
68; nominated by unanimous 
vote on first informal ballot, 68; 
James F. Joy, Address to the 
Legislature, 68-69; reelected to 
Senate, 69 

In the Senate, 1863 and 1864; 
speech in support of Currency 
bill, 70-72; introduces bill on 
Confederate property, 72; de- 
fends B. F. Butler, 72; remarks 
on Rebel rights, 72; letter to 
Tnmibull, 72-73; stumps Ohio in 
Sept., 74; denoimces Conserva- 
tive Republicans in letter to 
Lincoln, 74; Lincoln's reply, 75; 
delighted with President's mes- 
sage on reconstruction, Dec. 8, 

1863, 75; speaks against commut- 
ing military service by a money 
payment, 75; favors bill to 
prohibit speculation in gold, 
75-76; remarks on "regular lines 
between Detroit . and Liver- 
pool," 76; assaulted by Cop- 
perheads in National Hotel, 
76; favors death penalty for 
officers who sell military supplies 
to the enemy, 77; urges Lincoln 
to sign Wade- Davis bill, 77-78; 
Lincoln's reply, 78-79; reasons 
for opposition to Cleveland con- 
vention and candidacy of Fre- 
mont, 79-80 (n. 23); induces 
Fremont to withdraw and helps 
heal breach in Republican party, 
80-81; in campaign of 1864, 81. 
The Years 1865-1866; reasons for 
his hostility towards Great Bri- 
tain, 82-83; personality, 82-83; 
"twists the lion's tail," 83-84; 
favors policy of retaliation upon 



rebel prisoners for cruelties suf- 
fered by Union soldiers in South- 
em prisons, 84-86; helps defeat 
joint resolution to recognize State 
of Louisiana, 86; delighted with 
Andrew Johnson's sentiments on 
reconstruction, 86; slow to be- 
come an anti- Johnson man, 87; 
violent speech against Great 
Britain, 87; letter to Chicago 
Tribune, 88 ; remarks on Sumner's 
resolution of protest against prac- 
tice of pardoning criminals abroad 
on condition that they emigrate 
to the United States, 88; favors 
liberal interpretation of Inter- 
state Commerce clause, 89; work 
in connection with committee on 
commerce, 88-90; position on re- 
construction issues in campaign 
of 1866, 92-93; campaign meth- 
ods, 94 

Foreign Affairs and Reconstruc- 
tion, 1866-1868; why Chandler 
was radical on reconstruction, 
95-96; jingoistic attitude on for- 
eign affairs, 96-97; attacks Sec. 
McCulloch, 97-98; votes guilty in 
impeachment trial of Johnson, 
98; offers resolution in Senate in 
regard to French troops in Mexi- 
co, 99; remarks on Alabama 
Claims, 99-100; speech on Mex- 
ico, 100; offers joint resolution 
on Abyssinia, 100; speech against 
Great Britain,. 100-101 
Grant's First Administration and 
Campaign of 1872; firm believer 
in protective tariff, 111; "twists 
the lion's tail," 111; secures 
Federal appointments for friends 
and supporters, 111-112; his trip 
to Europe, 113; opposes inflation 
of the currency, 114; opposes 
establishment of an agency 



148 



INDEX 



abroad for payment of interest 
on the national debt, 114; offers 
resolution looking to the annexa- 
tion of Winnipeg, 114-115; speech 
on same, 115; efforts in behalf of 
bill to enforce the Fifteenth 
Amendment, 115; speech in favor 
of annexation of San Domingo, 
116; attacks on Sumner, 116; 
letter to Chas. T. Gorham com- 
menting on Sumner and Grant, 
116; his influence with Grant, 
116-117; opposed to civil ser- 
vice reform, 117; member of "Ku 
Klux Committee," 117; per- 
sonally honest but a practical 
politician, 117; quoted on Sena- 
torial contest of Jan., 1871, 118; 
denounces cry for reform and 
waves "bloody shirt" in cam- 
paign of 1872, 119-120; letters to 
C. T. Gorham on campaign of 
1872, 120-121 

Grant's Second Term and Chand- 
ler's Defeat in 1875; votes 
against Salary Grab bill, 123; 
living expenses, 123; debut of 
Miss Chandler described by Mark 
Twain, 123; opposes further in- 
flation of the currency, 123-124; 
in campaign of 1874, 125; meth- 
ods used to secure reelection to 
Senate, 126-130; lobby at Lans- 
ing, 128-129; vote in the Legis- 
lature and defeat of Chandler, 
129-130; analysis of causes for 
his defeat, 130-131; letter to 
C. T. Gorham commenting on 
his defeat, 131 

Summary of Chandler's Political 
Career, 1875-1879; Secretary of 
the Lnterior in Grant's cabinet, 
133; chairman of National Re- 
publican Committee and real 
director of Hayes' campaign, 



133-134; turned out of Dept. of 
Interior, 134; letters to C. T. 
Gorham, 134; elected to Senate 
to serve unexpired term of I. P. 
Christiancy, 135; Jeff Davis 
speech, 135; death, 135 

Cheboygan, 34-35, 37 

Childs, J. Webster, 128, 129 

Chippewa County, 35, 37 

Christiancy, Isaac P., candidate for 
Senate (1857), 40; (1863), 63; 
succeeds Chandler in the Senate, 
130; resigns, 135 

Civil Service reform, 117 

Clay, CM., 49 

Cleveland Convention (1864), 79 

Commerce, Senate committee on, 
45; Chandler's work on, 88 

Compromise of 1850, 15; repeal of 
denounced by Northern Whigs, 21 

Conduct of the War, committee on, 
58, 59 (n. 17 and 18), 61, 62, 66, 
85,86 

Confiscation of Rebel property. 
Chandler in favor of, 62 

Congress, see Chandler 

Copperheads, 95 ; Chandler's liatred 
for, 76 

Credit Mobilier, 124 

Crittenden Resolutions 54, (n. 4) 

Cuba, 46, 47 

Currency bill, 70 ff., 123-124, 114 

De Land, Charles V., History of 
Jackson County, 138 

Delta County, politics of, 37 

Dilla, H. M., Politics of Michigan 
IU5-1878, 136 

Democratic party, strength in Mich- 
igan in 1848 and 1852, 20; vote 
in Congress on Kansas- Nebraska 
bill, 20-21; strength among newly 
arrived immigrants, 23 ; really the 
party of aristocrats, 29; strong in 
certain parts of Michigan, 34, 37; 
Irish and, 35; Catholics and, 35, 



INDEX 



149 



37; French and, 35-36; Germans 
and, 36; Hollanders and, 36; 
Episcopalians and, 37; monop- 
olizes memberships of vSenate 
committees in 35th Congress, 45 ; 
see Election 

Detroit, Chandler nominated 
Mayor of, 7; population (1851), 
7; city improvements needed 
(1851), 28; Democratic strong- 
hold (1851), 8; Chandler elected 
Mayor of (1851), 8; nature of the 
office, 9; sympathy for Revolu- 
tion of 1848, 11; anti-slavery 
meeting in (1854), 21; Tribune. 
Whig organ, 21; Advertiser, Whig 
organ, 21; Free Press, Democra- 
tic newspaper, 21; citizens un- 
easy over possibility of attacks 
by Confederates from Canada, 
82; National Union Convention 
at in 1866, 92; Post established 
as organ of Chandler "Ring," 
103; gives Republican majority 
in 1872, 122. 

Dutch, see Hollanders 

Edmunds, James, M., 112 

Election of 1852 in Michigan, 14 flf. 

Election of 1854 in Michigan, 28 

Election of 1860 in Michigan, 51; 
see Chandler 

Election of 1862 in Michigan, 65 ff. 

Election of 1864 in Michigan, 81 

Election of 1866 in Michigan, 91 ff. 

Election of 1868 in Michigan, 102 ff. 

Election of 1872 in Michigan, 118 ff. 

Election of 1874 in Michigan, 124 ff. 

Emancipation Proclamation, 67 

Emmet County, politics of, 34-35, 
37 

Episcopalians, politics of, 37, 67 

Erie Canal, 89 

Farmer, S., History of Detroit and 
Michigan, 138 



Ferry, Thomas W., 108-109, 112, 
118, 125 

Fifteenth Amendment, 115 

Fourteenth Amendment, 91; 
Chandler's views on, 93, 98 

Free Democrats, 20-22 

Free Soilers, 15, 18, 22; strength 
in Michigan in 1848 and 1852, 
20; convention at Jackson (1854), 
23; convention at Kalamazoo, 24 

Fremont, John C, 59; nominated 
for president at Cleveland (1864), 
79; withdraws, 80 

French, political affiliations of, 
35-36 

Fugitive Slave Law, 15; not the 
cause of the dissolution of the 
Whig party in Michigan, 20 

Funding bill, 114 

"Fusionists," 65; nominate Jas. F. 
Joy for United States Senate 
(1863), 68 

Germans, political affiliations of, 
36 

Governor of Michigan, Chandler 
nominated by Whigs (1852), 14; 
Bingham nominated by Repub- 
licans (1854), 25; Bingham elect- 
ed, 28; politics of since 1854, 28 
(n. 13) 

Gorham, Charles T., 37, 120, 126, 
132, 134 

Grant, Ulysses S., 116-117, 120, 122, 
124, 133 

Great Britain, reasons for Chand- 
ler's hostility towards, 82-83; 
Chandler "twists the lion's tail," 
83-84, 87-88, 99-101, 111, 114-115 

Greeley, Horace, 21, 120, 121, 122 

Hay, John, quoted, 75 

Hayes, Rutherford B., 133, 134 

Helper's Impending Crisis, 47, 47 
(n. 8) 

Hollanders in IMich., politics of, 36 



150 



INDEX 



Howard, Jacob M., 102, 108; can- 
didate for Senate (1857), 40; 
candidate for Senate (1861), 63; 
elected to vSenate to succeed 
Bingham, deceased, 64; relations 
with Chandler, 64; hostility for 
Pres. Johnson, 91; introduces 
bill in Senate favoring policy of 
retaliation upon rebel prisoners, 
84; letter from Chandler with 
note by Howard on Struggle over 
bill to enforce the Fifteenth 
Amendment, 115-116; in Sena- 
torial election of 1871, 118 

Howard, William A., 50; quotes 
Chandler on his nomination for 
Governor of Michigan, 14; faith- 
ful supporter of Chandler, 112 

Houghton, Mich., 37, 111 

Internal improvements, 17 

Irish, political afhUations, 35 

Isle Royal, 90 

Jackson, Andrew, 52 

Jackson, Michigan, Republican 
party founded at, 24 flf. 

Jefferson, Thomas, quoted, 54 

Jerome, George, 111-112, 127 

Johnson, Andrew, member of Com- 
mittee on Conduct of the War, 
59, 86; early friendship with 
Chandler, 86-87; remarks on re- 
construction delight the Radicals, 
86; reconstruction policy, 91; 
Chandler turns against, 93; 
Chandler favors impeachment of, 
97-98 

Joy, James F., nominated by 
Fusionists for Senate (1863), 63; 
Address to the Legislature, 68-69; 
delegate to National Union Con- 
vention (1866), 92 

Julian, George W., Political Recol- 
lections, 138 

Kalamazoo, Michigan, Free Soil 
Convention at (1854), 24 



Kansas, Chandler's speech on 
(March 12, 1858), 45 

Kansas-Nebraska Bill, 21; the oc- 
casion not the cause for the dis- 
solution of the Whig party in 
Mich., party votes on in Con- 
gress, 20-21; issue of results in 
mass meetings throughout Mich. 
(1854), 21 

Kellogg, F. W., 49 

Kent County, politics of, 36 

Keweenaw County, politics of, 37 

Kinkel, Dr. Gottfried, visit to 
Detroit, 12 

Know Nothing party, 28 

Kossuth, Louis, 11 

Ku Klux Committee, 117 

Lacey, Samuel, 112 

Lefavour, Edward, 112 

Liberal Republican party, 118-119, 
124 

Lincoln, Abraham, 49-50, 51, 57, 
61, 67, 73-75, 78,81,86, 116. 

Lothrop, G. V. N., 129 

Luce, Cyrus G., 131 

McClellan, General George B., 61, 
81; visited by Chandler, Trum- 
bull and Wade, 57; quoted, 57-58; 
Chandler's opinion of, 59; Chand- 
ler's speech against, 60; removed 
from Command, 60; electoral 
vote for (1864), 81 
McClelland, Robert, nominated for 
Governor of Michigan, by Demo- 
crats, 14; characterized, 14 
McCulloch, Hugh, Secretary of llie 
Treasury, attacked In' Chandler, 
97-98 
Mackinac County, politics of, 35, 37 
Manistee County, strongly anti- 
slavery, 32 
Mark Twain, 123 
Marquette County, politics of, 37 
Maynard, A. B., 112 
Mayor of Detroit, Chandler nomin- 



INDEX 



151 



ated by Whigs, 7; elected, 8; 
nature of the office (1851), 9 
Menominee County, poHtics of, 37 
Methodists, 33 

Mexico, Chandler introduces reso- 
lution in Senate on French troops 
in, 99; Chandler's speech on, 100 
Michigan, Chandler nominated 
Governor of, 14; causes for anti- 
slavery sentiment in, 30 ff.; 
strength of union sentiment in, 
37-38; sends no delegates to 
Peace Congress, 53; Chandler 
secures liberal Federal appro- 
priations for, 89; dissolution of 
Whig party in, see Whig party 
Michigan Central Railroad, 50 
Monroe Doctrine, 11-1 
Nashua Letter, 16 
National Reform party, 124 
National Unionist party, 91-92 
Newspapers, bibliography, 137; 
New York Tribune, 21, 32; 
Detroit Post, 103; Detroit Ad- 
vertiser and Tribune, 103 
New York, State of, 89 
New York Tribune, 21, 32 
Niagara ship canal, 89 
Nicholson Letter, 39 
Oglesby, Governor of Illinois, 102- 

103 
Ontonagon County, politics of, 37 
Ottawa County, politics of, 36 
Pacific Railway, Chandler's re- 
marks on, 56; Chandler's amend- 
ment to bill to establish accepted 
by the Senate, 56 (n. 10) 
Peace Congress, Michigan not rep- 
resented in, 53 
Pierce, Franklin, 15-17 
Port Hudson, 73 
Post, Detroit newspaper, estab- 

Hshed as Chandler organ, 103 
Post-Tribune Life of Zachariah 
Chandler, 137 



Press-Gaglaw, 124 
Radical Republicans, 118-119 
Red River Expedition, 59 
Republican party of Michigan, 
founded, 24 ff. ; early feeling in 
resulting from fusion of old 
parties, 26; organized for cam- 
paign of 1854, 27-28; gained 
ascendency in Michigan (1854), 
28; characterized, 29, 40; dom- 
inated by Chandler 104-105; 
see Election 
Riddle, A. G., quoted, 74; Ben- 
jamin F. Wade, 137 
Rowlson, H. B., 112 
Saginaw Bay, 90 
Saginaw Valley, 24 
St. Albans raiders, 84 
St. Clair Flats, Chandler's efforts 
to secure Federal appropriation 
for channel through, 46, 90 
Salary Grab bill, 123, 124 
San Domingo, 116 
Sault Ste. "Marie Canal, 17 
Schurz, Carl, 134 
Scott, Winfield, 15, 16, 17, 18, 57, 

58 
Seward, Wm. H., 73, 74; enter- 
tained at Chandler's home, 49; 
castigated by Chandler (1866), 
93 
Stanton, Edwin M., .Secretary of 

War, 60, 73, 98 
Stuart, Charles E., 63, 92 
Sumner, Charles, 86 (n. 6), 87, 88, 

116, 117, 120, 124 
Swift, George, 112 
Thorpe, William, quoted, 98 
Trumbull, Lyman, 48, 49, 50, 51, 
60, 66, 72, 86; urges Lincoln to 
prosecute the war more vigor- 
ously, 57; denounced by Chand- 
ler (1872), 119 
Union Democrats, in campaign of 
1862, 65 



152 



INDEX 



United States Bank, 18 

Van Raalte, Rev. A. C, 36 

Voorhees, "Dan," 76-77 

Wade, Benjamin F., 49, 53, 86, 87; 
agreement with Chandler and 
Cameron to resent insults of 
Southern Senators, 48; present 
at Bull Run, 57; urges Lincoln 
to force the fighting, 57; member 
of Committee on Conduct of the 

. War, 59 

Wade-Davis bill. Chandler urges 
Lincoln to sign, 78 

Waldron, Henry, quoted, 51 

Warren, Joseph, 21 

Wayne County, population and 
politics, 34 (n. 8), 122 

Weed, Thurlow, 74, 75 



Wells, Hezekiah G., Candidate for 
Senate (1863), 63; supi)orted Ijy 
Chandler, 63 

Whig party, nominates Chandler 
for Mayor of Detroit (1851), 7 
nominates Chandler for Gov 
ernor of Michigan (1852), 14 
adjourns convention (1854) with 
out making nominations, 27 
causes for dissolution in Mich- 
igan, 20 ff. 

Wigfall, Senator, 56, 57 

Williams, General John R., 8 

Wilmot Proviso, 25 

Winnipeg, 114 

Wisner, Moses, candidate for Senate 
(1857), 40 



